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JUSTICE AND MERCY 



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REV. MARION D. SHUTTER, D. D. 

AUTHOR OF "WIT AND HUMOR OF THE BIBLE." 



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BOSTON AND CHICAGO 

UNIVERSALISt PUBLISHING HOUSE 

1894 



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Copyright, 1894, 

BY 

Universalist Publishing House. 



JUSTICE AND MERCY. 



PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. 



SINCE the eight sermons forming the original series 
were first published, there have been many calls 
for them, especially in the West and South, in places 
where new liberal movements were being started. They 
are now re-issued with as many more upon similar topics, 
in the hope that they may be useful in an educational 
way, in places where the doctrines they contain are not 
familiar. 

MARION D. SHUTTER, 
(Church of Redeemer, First Universalist.) 
Minneapolis, May 9, 1894. 



Dedication: 

TO 

REV. JAMES H. TUTTLE, D. D. 

THIS VOLUME IS 

AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED, 

BY THE AUTHOR. 



CONTENTS. 



I. The Discrowned King of Darkness, - 7 

II. Joseph Cook's Theory of Probation, - 23 

III. Endless Punishment from the Stand- 

point of Reason, - 43 

IV. Endless Punishment from the Stand- 

point of Scripture, - 61 

V. Universal Restoration the Creed of 

the Early Church, - 83 

VI. Rise and Growth of the Doctrine of 

Endless Punishment, 105 

VII. The New Motives, 122 

VIII. The Real Penalty of Sin, 140 

IX. The Divine Forgiveness, - - - - 157 

X. Day of Judgment, ----- 170 

XI. The Unpardonable Sin, - - - - 187 

XII. God a Consuming Fire, - 202 

XIII. The Remedy of Oblivion, - 216 

XIV. Personal versus Imputed Righteousness, 224 
XV. What Must I Do to be Saved? - - - 240 

XVI. Liberal Faith as a Basis of Character, 256 



THE DISCROWNED KING OF DARKNESS. 

[Sunday evening, March 12th, 1893.] 

"Every man is tempted when he is drawn away of 
his own lust and enticed!' — James 1:14. 

"With the rise of the rationalistic temper 
throughout Europe in the eighteenth century," 
says Principal Tulloch, "the belief in the perva- 
ding influence of diabolic agency began to dis- 
appear. The sense of the supernatural decayed 
in all directions, especially the old belief in the 
arbitrary control exercised by an evil power over 
human destiny. And while the religious impulse 
has gained greatly since then, and shown renewed 
vigor, both in an evangelical and catholic direc- 
tion, it can not be said that the earlier faith in the 
operations of a personal devil has acquired re- 
ascendancy." 

While it is true that the idea holds, by no 
means, the place it once did, it is not extinct. 
It is going, but not quite gone. Men have not 
entirely given it up. There are those who think 
that the very foundations would be shaken by its 
surrender, — that God himself would be hurled 
from his throne, were Satan ejected from human 
thought. A recent and justly esteemed Life of 
Christ defends the doctrine of an evil personality 



8 JUSTICE AND MERCY. 

with hosts of minor demons under his banner, and 
the reality of demoniacal possessions. A revered 
teacher in one of the leading theological semin- 
aries says: "There must be a revival of belief in 
a personal devil. Revive faith in the intimacy of 
the converse of demons with the minds of men to 
the extent possibly of demoniacal possessions. 
Picture their power to charm men with fascinating 
revelations. Reproduce with biblical intensity 
the great conflict between right and wrong as a 
conflict between God and Satan." 

There is no doubt a popular belief, more or less 
widespread, that corresponds with this declaration 
of faith. Satan, as a person, — a huge, fallen arch- 
angel, surrounded by and controlling hosts of 
subordinate demons, is still, to some extent, 
believed in and feared. Many speak his name 
with the same reverence they do that of God. A 
curious illustration may be found in Cape Cod 
Folks. Grandfather Spicer, in a petulant humor, 
uses the word "devilish." His wife, in calm and 
awful reproof, says: "I think we've gone far 
enough for one day. We've broke the Sabbath 
and took the name o' the Lord in vain, and that 
ought to be enough for perfessors! " Mr. Con- 
way tells of a lady in England who made her 
children bow their heads at the name of Satan, 
as well as at the name of God, because she 
thought it "safer." There is a story of a peasant 



THE DISCROWNED KING OF DARKNESS. 9 

woman in a French church who was found kneel- 
ing before a marble group and was warned by 
the priest that she was worshipping the figure of 
Beelzebub. "Never mind," she replied, "it is well 
enough to have friends on both sides." 

Thus, even in civilized lands, we may trace a 
bond of sympathy with the devil-worshippers of 
Mesopotamia, who recognize the existence of a 
supreme being, but give their peculiar reverence 
to Satan. It is hardly too much to say that, even 
in the theology of the church, the devil has had 
a larger share of attention than the Almighty. 

When we think of the influence this belief has 
exercised upon the human mind, of its terrible 
practical results in human history, we must ask, 
whence came this hideous conception? What has 
thrown the shadow of the arch-fiend across the 
sunlight of the ages? 

The idea was the growth of centuries. Vast 
periods rolled between the primitive notions of 
mankind upon the existence of demons and the 
full-grown, fantastic devil of the middle ages. To 
this last, the Vedic descriptions of Vitria's dark- 
ness contributed the hues in which he was painted; 
Greek and German forest-sprites his goat-like 
body, cloven hoofs and tail; the Scandinavian 
Thor his red beard and trident; dwarfs and goblins 
his red cloak and nodding plumes; the theory of 
metamorphosis the various forms he took. From 



10 JUSTICE AND MERCY. 

different ages and nations were gathered the ele- 
ments out of which superstition and ignorance 
and fear formed the satanic being who reigned 
supreme in the life and thought of Christendom 
for more than a thousand years. 

I wish to trace the origin and development of 
the idea of a satanic personality, as it appears 
in Jewish and Christian thought, — borrowing, as 
we proceed, side-lights from the demonology of 
other religions. 

The idea of a distinct personality of evil, such 
as the devil of what is called Christian theology, 
is not to be found in early Hebrew history. 
Nothing is known of a mighty opponent of Jeho- 
vah who disputes with him the supremacy of his 
own creation. This is a later development. The 
cardinal principle of Old Testament theology in 
its first stages that are recorded is that Jehovah 
was the author of evil as well as of good. He it 
was, by the representation, who hardened Pha- 
roah's heart, who ordered bloody massacres, who 
sent forth lying spirits, who tempted Abraham, 
who sent an evil spirit to trouble Saul, who de- 
ceived some of the prophets and then destroyed 
them because they uttered false oracles, who 
says, "I create evil," who asks, "shall there be evil 
in a city and the Lord hath not done it?" In the 
belief of the Jews when they first come distinctly 



THE DISCROWNED KING OF DARKNESS. 11 

upon the stage of history, good and evil were the 
work of one being and that being Jehovah. 

There are traces, however, of belief in minor 
spirits of evil, "the survival probably," says "Tul- 
loch, ''in the Hebrew consciousness of fragments 
of an older native faith which deified the powers 
of evil as well as of good." One of the most in- 
teresting studies imaginable is the tracing of sur- 
vivals of savagery in Jewish and Christian thought. 
The cross itself is written over in hideous scrawls, 
with savage ideas of sacrifice to brutal and ma- 
lignant deities. But this is foreign to my pur- 
pose tonight. In Leviticus, the people are warned 
not to offer sacrifices to devils; and in Deutero- 
nomy they are charged with having violated the 
command. All this is distinctly savage. Pas- 
sages in other parts of the Old Testament show 
that the Hebrews believed more or less in evil 
spirits who were supposed to dwell in darkness 
and in waste places. It would appear from the 
fact that Jehovah sometimes sends forth evil 
spirits upon his errands, that these dark existen- 
ces are under his control. But they are all kept 
in the background. They are apparently insignif- 
icant. No one of them stands distinctly forth as 
a leader and representative. There is no one who 
even remotely suggests the after prince of dark- 
ness. Not yet has the kingdom of evil come. 

The origin of such notions as those I have men- 



12 JUS1ICB AND MERCY. 

tioned is, doubtless, the same in the savage state 
of all peoples. When first the existence of the 
spirit after death is believed, the savage fancies 
that the soul of his enemy comes back and works 
mischief, — setting his hut on fire, destroying his 
cattle, devastating his fields. This is one source 
of demons. Then the obstacles against which he 
has to contend in his labors, each has a demon 
behind it, making toil a burden and a curse. His 
very hunger and thirst are caused by adverse 
spirits. Heat and cold, storm, lightning, flood, 
hail, are inflictions of unseen malign powers. 
The very animals that devour or annoy are 
demons in disguise. The devil-worshippers of 
Travancore declare that the evil power approaches 
them in the form of a dog, — as Mephistopheles 
approached Faust. The lion, the tiger, the bear, 
the serpent are all in the calendar of demons. 
Every one is familiar with the part played by the 
cat in demon-lore. This was the favorite form 
assumed by the devil in all his transactions with 
witches. (The connection between the cat and 
the infernal world will not seem arbitrary or im- 
possible to those who have been roused in the 
"dead waste and middle of the night," by a seren- 
ade from the garden fence.) It was a belief of 
Christian ages that those who died without priest- 
ly forgiveness, and unbaptized infants, revisited 
their former homes in the shape of rats. Then, 



THE DISCROWNED KING OF DARKNESS. 13 

too, whatever hindered man's moral progress, his 
temptations, his evil desires, his base thoughts, — 
all these proceeded from spirits of darkness. 

There is still another factor in demonology, 
dreams. These are intimately associated with 
the lower forms of religion. The dream is to the 
savage a revelation from the world of spirits. The 
events that flit through his brain have the same 
reality as do those of his waking hours. He be- 
lieves that he quits the body and walks among the 
beings of another world. When his dreams are 
evil and disturbed, he is in a hostile region car- 
ried thither by spirits of harm, against his will. 
In a volume of the United States exploring ex- 
pedition, this passage occurs: "Sometimes when 
the Australians are asleep, Koin makes his appear 
ance, siezes one of them and carries him off. The 
person siezed in vain endeavors to cry out, being 
almost strangled. At daylight, however, he dis- 
appears, and the man finds himself conveyed to 
his own fireside in safety. From this it would 
appear that the demon is here a sort of person- 
ification of nightmare — a visitation to which the 
natives from their habits of gorging themselves 
to the utmost when they obtain a supply of food, 
must be very subject." 

These are the sources of that belief in evil 
spirits which had been so widespread. I said a 
moment ago, that in the earlier Hebrew history 



14 JUSTICE AND MERCY. 

and theology there are some traces of belief in 
minor spirits of darkness supposed to dwell in 
rocks and waste places and thick gloom; and that 
this belief probably grew up among the Hebrews, 
as it did elsewhere, out of the evils natural and 
moral with which they had to contend. We have 
here the germs of that mighty and countless host 
of wicked spirits that afterwards peopled the air of 
Palestine. But as yet we have not reached the 
arch-fiend himself. We have not come to the 
prince of darkness, the captain of. the hosts of 
iniquity that war against men. 

It is during the latter part of the Jewish cap- 
tivity that the belief in evil spirits receives a 
mighty impulse, and that the supreme and con- 
trolling devil is born. 

How is this to be explained? By the Persian 
influence upon the Jews, after Babylon had been 
taken by the disciples of Zoroaster. This great 
prophet of Persia was a man of mighty powers. 
He believed in one God and explained the mys- 
tery of evil as the work of demons ruled by an 
arch-fiend, who at length came to be known as 
Ahriman. Zoroaster himself believed in the ulti- 
mate triumph of good. In course of time, his 
followers seeing that the powers of good and evil 
seemed equal, neither being able to conquer, 
Ahriman was beld to be as supreme over evil as 
Ormuzd over good. The universe was a battle- 



THE DISCROWNED KING OF DARKNESS. 15 

field where these two waged unceasing war, each 
having hosts of angels who served him. Gradu- 
ally, under this influence, the idea that God should 
be all good and some other being all evil, the 
Jewish Satan came into evistence. At first, as in 
the book of Job, he is simply a somewhat wild 
and rakish member of the divine family, one of the 
sons of God who has been wandering up and 
down the earth, and has arrived at the conclusion 
that men are no better than they should be, and 
he suggests that if the Almighty thinks Job a per- 
fect man, it might be well to put him to the test. 
Take away his property foi example, and if that 
does not make him curse God, put a few boils on 
him and see! Then in the book of Zechariah 
Satan has got on so far that he stands up as an 
accuser of the innocent. Finally, in the first book 
of Chronicles, he is mentioned as suggesting the 
evil in certain transactions, which evil in the 
earlier books is attributed to God. "While it may 
be almost certainly assumed," says Principal 
Tulloch, "that with all the jealous monotheism of 
the Jews, there was an undergrowth of darker 
conceptions pointing to evil existences opposed 
to the divine, and that to some extent the later 
idea of the devil sprang out of this natural growth 
in the Hebrew mind of an evil side to nature and 
life; yet this process of growth may have been 
greatly aided by contact with Persian dualism; 



16 JUSTICE AND MERCY. 

and especially the idea of a kingdom and hier- 
archy of evil powers seems to have been indebted 
to this source." This is the origin of the devil 
and his angels. 

From the time of the captivity down to New 
Testament times, the Satanic idea grew and the 
kingdom of darkness multiplied. Demons at 
length came to be so numerous that every man 
was supposed to have ten thousand on his right 
hand and one thousand on his left. He was to 
address no one at night, lest he address a demon. 
When he happened to gape he must quickly place 
his hand over his mouth for fear a devil might 
leap down his throat. It was the delight of these 
demons to work all possible calamities on men 
and even on beasts, and hence the sickness and 
calamities that happened to living creatures were 
ascribed to them. Palsy, deafness, blindness, 
lameness, were the work of these malicious imps. 
They took possession of human bodies and 
wrought their will. Even headaches had a special 
demon who caused them. (If this be true, it fur- 
nishes a plausible explanation for a very extra- 
ordinary phenomenon. The natural antagonism 
that demons might be supposed to feel towards 
the "means of grace," will easily explain why 
headaches are most frequent on Sunday!) 

The legend by which the rabbins sought to ex- 
plain demoniacal possession was as follows: 



THE DISCROWNED KING OF DARKNESS. 17 

"These beings were the last of the six days' crea- 
tion, but they were made so late in the day, that 
there was no daylight by which to fashion bodies 
for them. The Creator was just putting them off 
with a promise that he would make them bodies 
the next day, when lo! the Sabbath, which was 
for a long time personified, came and sat before 
him to represent the many evils which might 
result from the precedent he would set by work- 
ing even a little on the day whose sanctity had 
already been promulgated. Under these circum- 
stances, the Creator told the devils that they 
might disperse and try to get bodies as they 
could find them. " On this account they took to 
nestling in the hearts of human beings, availing 
themselves of human senses and passions. They 
felt that they had been badly treated, and deter- 
mined to be revenged. 

It was in this atmosphere surcharged with 
that Jesus began his work. The belief was devils 
thoroughly ingrained into the thought and life and 
literature of the people. The vehicles of his own 
thought and teaching were thus prepared. The 
conceptions of sin and evil of the time in which 
he lived were the ones with which he must deal; 
the molds of expression furnished must embody 
his instructions. The records which have come 
down to us bear the impress of the age in which 
they were written. Demoniacs, as they were then 



18 JUSTICE AND MERCY. 

called, but as we should say to-day lunatics, in 
every stage of lunacy, abounded. We are told 
that many of these he healed, and we may well 
believe that he did so. His superiority, his gentle- 
ness, his firmness, would restore the unbalanced 
minds and expel the creatures of imagination who 
rioted in perturbed brains. 

Whatever may have been the relation of his 
views to that kingdom of darkness which had 
been imported from Persia, this at all events, he 
did: he proclaimed great truths which when fully 
reeognized and accepted, must drive the belief in 
supernatural powers of evil forever from the hu- 
man mind. Out of the heart — from the man him- 
self — not from invisible spaces roundabout, popu- 
lous with fiends, proceed evil thoughts and evil 
deeds. James, the brother of Jesus, after him 
declared that every man is tempted when drawn 
away of his own lusts, or desire, and enticed. No 
one but man himself is responsible for his sins. 
No one can harm man save himself. The universe 
is not against him. It is for him. Let him put 
himself into harmony with its laws, and he will 
find that all things about him are ministering 
angels, and not demons of destruction. 

But it w&s during the centuries that followed 
Christ and his apostles, that the belief in a devil 
and fiends of darkness ran riot in the earth. 
Church history terms with accounts of personal 



THE DISCROWNED KING OF DARKNESS. 19 

conflicts with the prince of evil. The footsteps 
of the saints were dogged by demons. The air 
was full. Every evil thought was suggested by 
them. To escape them men left the city and 
went into the wilderness, only to find the waste 
places grinning with persecuting imps. The devil, 
immeasurably more than Christ, dominated fifteen 
centuries of Christian history. Theories of the 
atonement were all founded upon the Satan-idea. 
The fathers found the problem of the great sac- 
rifice unriddled in that it was intended literally to 
strike from humanity the satanic grasp. The souls 
of men had been taken captive in the fall, by the 
great adversary, and the only way in which they 
could be redeemed, was for " Jesus to offer him- 
self to the devil as the ransom for which he should 
release all the others. " 

If the Satan-idea had stopped here, it would 
have been bad enough. But it went further. It 
blossomed into the bloodiest crimes that stain 
the pages of modern history — crimes committed 
in the name of Christ. The craze of witchcraft 
with its persecutions and murders came of it. It 
put the human bloodhound upon the track of the 
deformed and unfortunate. It crowded the 
courts. It lighted the faggots. 

Says Mr. Leckey, in his History of Rationalism'. 
" In order that men should believe in witches, 
their intellects must have been familiarized with 



20 JUSTICE AND MERCY. 

conceptions of satanic power and satanic pres- 
ence, and they must regard these things with an 
unfaltering belief. In order that witchcraft 
should be prominent, the imaginations of men 
must have been so forcibly directed to these 
articles of belief, as to tinge and govern the habit- 
ual current of their thoughts and to produce a 
strong disposition to see Satanic agency around 
them." * * * "For more than 1500 years, it 
was universally believed that the Bible established 
in the clearest manner, the reality of the crime, 
and that an amount of evidence so varied and so 
ample as to preclude the very possibility of doubt, 
attested its continuance and prevalence. The 
clergy denounced it with all the emphasis of 
authority; the legislators of almost every land 
enacted laws for its punishment Acute judges, 
whose lives were spent in sifting evidence, invest- 
igated the question on countless occasions and 
condemned the accused. Tens of thousands of 
witches perished by the most agonizing and 
protracted torments, without exciting the faintest 
compassion." 

The history of the results of this belief in the 
devil and his angels would be enought to condemn 
it in every serious mind. A doctrine that has 
wrought such ravages has no title to respect. 
Born in savagery, it has perpetutated savage feel- 
ings wherever it has been received. It does not 



THE DISCROWNED KING OF DARKNESS. 21 

work for righteousness. It blights and hardens. 
When we are invited to-day to revive the waning 
belief in the devil and rehabitiate him in his med- 
ieval rags as a scarecrow to frighten sinners in 
times of religious excitement, we say, Let him 
be finally buried to rot in his sepulcher of infamy 
and let every stone of execration that the ages 
have justified be piled upon him. 

The rationalistic spirit of the 18th century 
checked the delusion, and brought back men to 
the solid ground of common sense. To us to-day, 
those who would have been thought in other ages 
possessed of devils, are regarded as insane and 
placed in hospitals. The sterner operations of 
nature are no longer the work of demons: "every- 
thing is now, in the belief of the most thoughtful 
men, governed by law. Disease and lunacy are 
traced to their origin; the storm and earthquake 
are following some law; our suffering, when we do 
wrong is the consciousness that we have trans- 
gressed some principle of righteousness." We do 
not burn the aged and deformed and unfortunate 
as witches and wizards. We care for them. Thus 
the kingdom of darkness is yelding. Let the 
demons and their arch-fiend die! It is only when 
we banish forever these horrible notions that we 
can fully believe in God and in the coming of 
that day when "God shall be all and in all." 




CHURCH OF THE REDEEMER, MINNEAPOLIS. 






II. 

JOSEPH COOK'S THEORY OF PROBATION. 

[Sunday Evening, Oct. 19th, 1890.] 

I hold in my hand a lecture by Joseph Cook, 
interspersed with marks of "applause" and 
"laughter." In that lecture Mr. Cook proved to 
the satisfaction of a large congregation in the 
city of Boston, that under the government of a 
just and loving and all-powerful God, sin and 
suffering would exist forever ; that multitudes of 
our fellow-beings would continue in rebellion and 
torment endless ; that even were God so dis- 
posed, he could do nothing to help them. Their 
condition must remain immitigable and rayless. 
In that congregation there were undoubtedly 
many whose dearest friends or relatives had 
passed to the other world with what Mr. Cook 
would call "permanent evil character;" and who 
consequently will sin and suffer through interm- 
inable ages. And yet that congregation greeted 
those statements with applause! 

That was a marvellous spectacle, — that clapping 
and stamping audience, — a marvellous spectacle 
for modern civilization! It is one of those things 
that make us doubt sometimes the superior 
humanity of our generation. It is true, we have 
our societies for the prevention of cruelty to 
animals ; but in the latter part of the nineteenth 



24 JUSTICE AND MERCY. 

century, hundreds of professedly Christian people 
in Boston shout over the prospect of myriads of 
human beings writhing in torment without rem- 
edy and without hope ! Let Christian America 
no longer censure Pagan Rome. The assembly 
that clap their hands over the hell of Mr. Joseph 
Cook have forfeited their right to condemn the 
Roman populace who witnessed with pleasure 
gladiators hew each other to pieces in the amphi- 
theater! Indeed, the Pagan has the advantage. 
The sufferings over which he gloated were but 
momentary. Those over which the Christian re- 
joices outlast the sun, endure while the throne of 
the Eternal stands. And still we send out mis- 
sionaries to convert heathen tribes from their 
barbarities ! Let us trust that the news of this 
demonstration may never penetrate to the jungles 
of those savage objects of missionary solicitude. 

Last Sunday evening, Mr. Cook repeated some 
portions of that lecture in this city and was 
greeted with enthusiasm. The newspaper reports 
say: "The speaker here arrayed a host of Bib- 
lical quotations to prove his case. The Good 
Book taught from cover to cover that final per- 
manence of character was reached in this world, 
and all life and nature corroborated it. Reason, 
conscience and common sense all taught it, and 
he could have little respect for the intellect of 
the man who held otherwise." 



JOS. COOK'S THEORY OF PROBATION. 25 

Nevertheless we venture to hold otherwise ! 

" It is not the best way," says Mr. Cook, " to 
teach the truth of future punishment, to say that 
a man is punished forever and ever for the sins 
of that hand's-breadth of duration we call time, 
If the soul does not repent of these with contri- 
tion, and not merely with attrition, the nature of 
things forbids its peace. But the Biblical and 
natural truth is, that prolonged dissimilarity of 
feeling with God may end in eternal sin. If there 
is eternal sin, there will be eternal punishment. 
Final permanence of character under the laws of 
judicial blindness, and the self-propagating power 
of sin, is the truth emphasized by both God's 
word and his works." 

This, then, is the gist of that phase of the 
doctrine of which Mr. Cook is high priest: that 
character tends to permanence, good or evil; that 
it becomes so fixed and unchangeable in this 
world, that after death it cannot be affected in 
one way or another. The good cannot be modi- 
fied by evil; the evil character cannot be modified 
by good, however strong and persistent its ap- 
peals. The statue of Memnon, in the classic 
fable, when touched by the rising sun, gave forth 
sweet music. But harder than the black marble 
of that ancient statue, is the heart that the sins 
of a few brief earthly years have petrified. The 
light even from Him who is said to be our sun, as 



26 JUSTICE AND MERCY. 

well as our shield, can evoke from that flinty sub- 
stance no heavenly melody ! So teaches Mr. 
Cook. Immutable and unyielding sin is accom- 
panied by perpetual suffering. 

This is the doctrine. What shall we say of it? 
Let us not say that " we can have little respect for 
the intellect of those who hold it;" because the 
fact is there are some elements of truth in this 
theory ; there is truth enough in it to mislead 
even a great intellect into the belief that it is the 
whole truth and nothing but the truth. 

The truths in that doctrine, however, are 
preached from this pulpit. We have never fal- 
tered, — 

In laying emphasis upon the value of the present. 
" It is with a chill in my inmost spiritual self," 
said Mr. Cook last Sunday night, "that I hear of 
a doctrine being preached which encourages men 
in the delay of repentance." When has any such 
encouragement ever been held out from this 
pulpit ? When have we ever flung to the breeze 
a banner inscribed with the legend "Indiffer- 
ence"? When have we ever taught that it 
mattered not how we treated our privileges or 
improved our opportunities ? Every sin robs us 
of some comfort, impairs our usefulness, prolongs 
our misery, postpones our bliss. " To-day," and 
not "to-morrow," is our watchword. 

This pulpit has never- failed to make prominent 



JOS. COOK'S THEORY OF PROBATION. 27 

the power of habit. Who does not know from ob- 
ervation the might of sin ? Who has not, in his- 
own experience, felt the chains himself ? With 
what anguish and struggle are the fetters of evil 
habit finally broken ! 

This pulpit has never faltered in teaching the 
sinfulness of sin and the certainty of penalty, — a pen- 
alty that cannot be evaded by any form of vica- 
rious sacrifice. 

Mr. Cook complained of a " chill in his spirit- 
ual being," when he heard of a doctrine that " en- 
courages men in the delay of repentance." Where 
may he hear such doctrine ? Not in this church. 
I will tell him. He will hear by the death-bed of 
every hardened sinner to whom an evangelical 
clergyman is called, a doctrine that encourages 
every other hardened sinner to wait till he lies 
upon his own death-bed. He will hear upon 
every gallows a doctrine that will encourage 
other criminals to wait till they stand beneath the 
fatal noose. He preaches such a doctrine himself 
in the prelude to his published lecture on the per 
manence of character, — a doctrine which practi- 
cally nullifies the lecture that follows : " Look on 
the cross and you will lose the desire to sin. 
* * * This is a direction which a man cannot 
die following, and die without deliverance from 
the love of sin and the fear of its penalties." The 
doctrine that there is some other being in this 



28 JUSTICE AND MERCY. 

universe who has done your work, obeyed the law 
of God in your stead, suffered the endless penalty 
that should have fallen upon you, — a being in 
whom you may say at the very last moment " I 
believe," — this is a doctrine which, in causing 
men to delay repentance, may well "strike a chill 
to Mr. Cook's inner spiritual self." 

The truths in that doctrine of final permanence, 
are not new or startling to those who are accus- 
tomed to worship in this house. But these prin- 
ciples do not comprise the whole truth — they 
are not the complete gospel. We add what Mr. 
Cook leaves out. 

If in our contemplation of man and our outlook 
upon the universe, we saw nothing but the power 
of habit and the tendency of sin, — if we saw 
nothing but the fetters which bind, the evils that 
blight, the iniquities that harden, — if we saw 
nothing but the broad road down which multi- 
tudes madly plunge, — if along this dark way we 
saw no rising light, no redemptive agencies, no 
counteracting forces, — then we might believe 
that sin once started would, by the power of 
habit, go on, until it hurled us helpless and 
changeless at last into the abyss. 

But right here is the fatal defect in this theory. 
It starts this tendency, and takes no account of 
anything else in the man himself or in his con- 
ditions. It isolates him. It makes nothing of 



JOS. COOK'S THEORY OF PROBATION. 29 

forces that work in the opposite direction. It 
leaves out many things that must enter into the 
account. If you take a ball and give it an im- 
pulse, it will roll continuously along the way in 
which it is started, if you can roll it in a vacuum; 
but you must know that when your ball begins 
rolling, the invisible hands of gravitation grasp it, 
the powers of the air oppose it, the friction of the 
earth retards, until at last the original impulse 
which set it in motion dies out. 

If you can start the soul in sin, and leave it in 
a moral vacuum, or surround it with nothing but 
sin, and place it in a universe where only sin can 
operate upon it, you may make it permanent in 
iniquity. But this is precisely what cannot be 
done. The real question that confronts us is this: 
What will be the outcome of the soul with this ten- 
dency to sin, in its actual environment ? The answer 
to this question that affirms permanence of evil, 
leaves out most essential considerations. 

I. It omits the facts of human life. 

When it makes death the limit beyond which 
character cannot be formed, it makes a limit that 
is purely arbitrary ; that is not warranted by the 
facts of life, so far as we can observe them and 
judge from them. 

What are the facts ? so far as we can observe, 
character is a thing of gradual formation. We 



30 JUSTICE AND MERCY, 

know of no such thing in this world as a man be- 
coming in an instant righteous or wicked. Per- 
fection is not reached by a sudden leap ; nor 
hopeless wickedness by a sudden fall. To say 
that all this is accomplished at the moment of 
death, is to affirm something out of harmony with 
all that goes before it. It is to exalt an incident 
into a revolution. 

Those who hold this theory exhort men to re- 
pent, so long as a single thread is uncut by the 
fatal shears. If there is hope one minute before 
death, why not one minute after ? What makes 
the mighty difference ? 

Again, stand by the death-beds of the worst and 
best men that you have ever known. The best 
man is imperfect ; the worst has some lingering 
trace of good, — at least some possibility of good. 
Does death remove all the imperfections of the 
one, and blot out all the possibilities of the other? 

Again, consider how many of our race die be- 
fore character has had an opportunity to develop. 
They have reached years of responsibility, it is 
true ; but who can say in the case of your boy or 
girl of ten or fifteen or even twenty, that the 
character has already acquired an unchanging 
bent for good or evil ? But this theory obliges 
you to say when death comes to the unformed 
youth, " There is no change beyond ! " If that 
crude, raw, unfinished child has not, to use the 



JOS. COOK'S THEORY OF PROBATION. 31 

somewhat ponderous language of Mr. Cook, "sur- 
rendered himself completely, affectionately, irre- 
versibly to God," his character is fixed for eternity 
in sin, he will always be a rebel against God, and 
will always suffer the penalty of a traitor. I 
affirm that neither scripture nor reason supports 
such a preposterous notion. Mr. Cook diverts 
attention from these cases, by choosing as his ex- 
amples, such characters as Caligula, Nero, Charles 
IX, and Milton's Satan ; but if death is the limit, 
he must not ignore the ones I have mentioned. 
A theory that deals with extreme cases alone 
must not be generalized into a doctrine for all. 

Nor will I, upon the other hand, ignore the ex- 
treme examples he has mentioned. Let us take 
an instance belonging to this class, — an instance 
that is furnished by Mr. Crowe. " The case of 
two men, brothers, twins who have grown up in 
crime, who have been steeped in vice, until there 
is not an evil thing they have left undone ; year 
by year their names have been the synonym of 
whatsoever is bad. While they were still young, 
they seemed altogether possessed of the devil, 
but they sank still lower through years of de- 
bauchery, till in middle life one of them was 
killed in a drunken brawl. ' Surely,' you say, * he 
had sinned to the uttermost, his evil heart had 
reached the stage of permanence.' But his 
brother, in all wickedness his twin, lived on the 



32 JUSTICE) AND MERCY. 

same evil way, growing daily worse, if possible, 
for ten years more ; then, God knows how, there 
came a change, and the seemingly dead heart 
awoke to life. The horrible sinner of sixty years 
faced about, began to live righteously, became a 
minister, and for twenty years more preached and 
lived the gospel of Jesus. His character was not 
fixed when his brother died ; and his brother's 
character, like his, was not fixed. The death line 
is not the limit." Such conversions are common. 
Saul, when stricken down on his way to Damas- 
cus, was older in years and in sin than Nero. 
Who will say that when Saul, the blood-stained 
persecutor of the Church, could be changed into 
an apostle, Nero himself was beyond hope ? 

II. This theory ignores the human will 

ITSELF. 

Mr. Cook appreciates the difficulty and tries to 
meet it. He says, "that self-propagating power 
of sin, may produce a state of soul in which evil 
is chosen as good, and in which it is forever too 
late to mend, and yet not destroy free will." The 
illustration he uses is Milton's Satan. " Is John 
Milton putting together a self-contradiction, 
when he pictures Satan as making his evil good 
and as yet retaining a free will ? I affirm that 
you know John Milton's Satan is not an impos- 
sible character." Milton's Satan is possible only 



JOS. COOK'S THEORY OF PROBATION. 33 

in the realm of the imagination. His counter- 
part is not to be found in actual life. A being in 
whom there is evil and only evil, unmixed evil, 
unadulterated malignity, evil unredeemed by a 
touch of good, never did exist in the history of 
the world, and does not exist to-day. And only 
of such a man could we say that he would always 
choose evil. Mr. Cook starts with a speculation 
and proves it by a fiction. A puff of air is his 
hypothesis, and clouds are his arguments. He 
starts with a figment of the metaphysical imagin- 
ation and demonstrates it by a figment of the 
poetical imagination. The man in the parable 
who built his house upon sand, had a firmer foun- 
dation. 

Let us look into this matter a little further. 

You say the soul will always continue to sin. 
What is necessary to a sinful choice ? Two 
courses, one right, the other wrong, must be pre- 
sented ; the being to whom they are presented 
must see that one is right and the other wrong, 
and have the power to choose between them. 
Without these conditions, the human being is a 
machine, without responsibility and incapable of 
sin. If two ways are open, and the will remains 
free, how can you say with confidence that the 
evil will inevitably be chosen ? 

Freedom of the will is often surprisingly illus- 
trated in this world, in cases where to all appear- 
o 



34 JUSTICE AND MERCY. 

ance habits were fixed. Smoking and drinking, 
etc., have been given up in advanced age. Why 
may there not be an extension of similar facts 
into the next world ? Is it so surprising a thing 
to see new traits of character appear in advancing 
life ; to see character entirely revolutionized ? 
Milton's Satan is an impossibility ; but George 
Eliot's Silas Marner is not. The little child he 
picked up on his door-step created for him a 
new heaven and a new earth ! 

The most desperate and hardened lives have 
been changed here, by a loving word, a tear, a 
hand-clasp. I will not, however, depend upon 
the novel. I will take an instance from real life 
that is vouched for by a person now present in 
this audience : 

In a prison at New Bedford, Mass., there was a 
man whom we will call Jim, who was a prisoner 
on a life sentence. He was regarded as a des- 
perate, dangerous man, ready for rebellion at any 
hour. He planned a general outbreak, but was 
betrayed by one of the conspirators. He plotted 
a general mutiny or rebellion, and was again be- 
trayed. He then kept his own counsel ; and, 
while never refusing to obey orders, he obeyed 
like a man who only needed backing to make him 
refuse. One day in June a party of strangers 
came to the institution. One was an old gentle- 
man, the others ladies, and two of the ladies had 



JOS. COOK'S THEORY OF PROBATION. 35 

small children. The guide took one of the chil- 
dren on his arm, and the other walked until the 
party came to climbing the stairs. Jim was wor- 
king near by, sulky and morose as ever, when the 
guide said to him : 

" Jim, won't you help this little girl up stairs ?" 

The convict hesitated, a scowl on his face ; and 
the little girl held her arms out to him and said, 
" If you will, I guess I'll kiss you." The scowl 
vanished in an instant, and he lifted the child as 
tenderly as a father. Half way up the stairs she 
kissed him. At the head of the stairs she said, 
" Now you've got to kiss me, too." 

He blushed like a woman, looked into her 
innocent face, and then kissed her cheek, and 
before he reached the foot of the stairs again the 
man had tears in his eyes. From that day he 
was a changed man, and no one in the place gave 
less trouble. 

If such changes take place here, in those whose 
characters are regarded as permanent in evil, why 
not hereafter ? 

III. This theory ignores the very consti- 
tution OF THE UNIVERSE. 

This universe was conceived in goodness, so 
ordered as to produce goodness, and destined to 
end in goodness. 

Why does good character tend to permanence ? 



36 JUSTICE AND MERCY. 

Because it is in harmony with all the great forces 
in the universe. Why does not bad character 
tend to permanence ? Because everything is 
opposed to it. 

Dr. S. Crane in a remarkable article upon this 
subject, has made the following supposition : 

11 Now, put a human soul into this universe and 
start him in the direction of evil, and what pos- 
sibility, not to say probability, is there of that 
soul continuing on in that direction forever ? 
His sin has thrown him out of harmony with 
everything around him. Everything works 
against him. All the great forces of creation 
beat upon him. All the righteous laws of the 
universe smite him with their penalties. The na- 
ture of things is armed at every point for his de- 
feat. The whole universe, with God behind it, is 
set in the most determined opposition to him. 
How absurd, then, to hold that that soul, that 
poor human soul, can hold out to all eternity in 
opposition to that universe ; that he can stand up 
forever and defy all the powers of creation wor- 
king under the eye of God for his subjection. 
The doctrine which teaches this, is not only athe- 
istic, but it turns the universe into a farce. 
Created to be the great promoter of righteousness, 
and armed with the powers of the Infinite to this 
end, it utterly fails to bring this rebellious soul 
into obedience. He who would mock the Ah 



JOS. COOK'S THEORY OF PROBATION. 37 

mighty and burlesque his universe, cannot do it 
more effectually than by teaching such a doctrine 
as this. 

That the absurdity of this position may be seen 
more effectually, let the factors of this problem, 
the characters in this picture, change places. 
Suppose all its great laws and forces tended to 
produce iniquity. Suppose all its powers and the 
whole drift of its movement were in the direction 
of unrighteousness. Suppose it was conceived 
in sin, brought forth in iniquity, and is now 
governed and ordered unto wickedness by the 
devil himself. 

Into this universe put a human soul started in 
the way of righteousness. Would any one believe 
that it could continue on in that way forever ? 
Would not every one regard it as the greatest 
absurdity to teach that this soul with no hand to 
help, and nothing but his own finite will with 
which to resist, could hold out to all eternity 
against all the malignant forces of this malignant 
universe, directed and impelled by the very spirit 
of evil, and all working to compass his ruin ? In 
such a universe could any man believe for a mom- 
ent that a righteous tendency — admitting that 
such a tendency could exist — would be allowed 
to go on until it became permanent ? 

Why, then, believe that a tendency in sin can 
be permanent in this universe, a universe of 



38 JUSTICE AND MERC\. 

righteousness in which human souls are placed ? 
Why believe that a sinful soul can hold out for- 
ever against God and his universe, and yet refuse 
to believe that a righteous soul could hold out 
forever against the devil and his universe ?" 

It is the teaching of history and experience 
that evil must die. Only that which is good lives 
and flourishes. Moral force alone persists. 

"This is he, who, felled by foee, 
Sprung harmless up, refreshed by blows; 
He to captivity was sold, 
But him no prison-bars would hold: 
Though they sealed him in a rock, 
Mountain chains he can unlock ; 
Thrown to lions for their meat, 
The crouching lions kissed his feet ; 
Bound to the stake, no flames appalled, 
But arched o'er him an honoring vault. 
This is he men mis-call Fate, 
Threading dark ways, arriving- late, 
But ever coming in time to crown 
The truth, and hurl wrong-doers down." 

The great law of the universe, therefore, as we 
read it, is not that character, good and bad, 
equally tend to permanence, but that goodness 
tends to permanence; and that evil in the long run 
must perish. 

This is the verdict of all profound philosophy. 

Thus Emerson says : " Evil, according to the 
old philosophers, is good in the making. That 
pure malignity can exist is the extreme propo- 



JOS. COOK'S THEORY OF PROBATION. 39 

sition of unbelief. It is not to be entertained by 
a rational agent, it is atheism, it is the last prof- 
anation. The divine effort is never relaxed, the 
carrion in the sun will convert itself to grass and 
flowers." Carlyle, too, expresses this law of the 
universe:, "The best philosophy teaches that 
the very consequences (not to speak of the pen- 
alties at all) of evil actions die away and become 
abolished long before eternity ends, that it is only 
the consequences of good actions that are eternal, 
for these are in harmony with the laws of this 
universe and add themselves to it, and co-operate 
with it forever ; while all that is not in harmony 
with it must necessarily be without continuance, 
and fall dead, as perhaps you have heard in the 
sound of a Scottish psalm amid the mountains ; 
the true notes alone support one another, all 
following the one true rule. The false notes, 
each following its different false rule, quickly de- 
stroy one another, and the psalm which was dis- 
cordant enough near at hand, is perfect melody 
when heard from afar." 

IV. Finally, this theory leaves out God. 

It fails to base itself upon any adequate view of 
the Divine government. 

One of several suppositions is possible. Per- 
manence in evil may be affirmed. If God was 
not able to foresee the outcome, and has grown 



40 JUSTICE AND MERCY. 

discouraged, leaving things to run on as they will 
to whatsoever destiny they may chance to find. 
If he is not able to influence his children ; if he 
has made souls which he cannot handle. If he 
has formed natures whose secret springs of action 
he does not understand. If he is ?iot good but 
fiendish and delights in sin and suffering. Upon 
any of these grounds, permanence in evil may be 
maintained. 

The permanence of evil either in the individual 
or the universe may not be affirmed, if we admit 
that God is wise, able and willing to save — not 
by compulsion, but as he always saves, by the 
force of moral influence. Penalty there will be — 
justice, but not brutality or cruelty. "Our God 
is a consuming fire ; " but he burns -the dross and 
refines the gold. Mr. Cook admits, in closing his 
lecture, that the number of the saved may be 
greater than the number of the lost, — may bear 
to the lost the same proportion that the law- 
abiding community bears to the convicts in 
prisons. But what is a prison after all, but a tes- 
timony to the imperfection of human govern- 
ment ? It is a part of the rude machinery — the 
best we yet know — of holding in check certain 
vicious elements of society. But even human 
governments as they advance in wisdom, turn 
their prisons, so far as possible, into schools of 
education, discipline, and reformation, believing 



JOS. COOK'S THEORY OF PROBATION. 41 

that society is protected and justice satisfied, in 
transforming these outlaws into useful citizens. 
In this increasing spirit of humanity have we not 
a divine revelation that gives us glimpses at least 
of heaven's procedure ? May we not believe 
that, in the perfect government of God, the prison 
house of souls, will itself be an agency of redemp- 
tion ? Will the divine scepter have complete 
sway until the convicts in perdition's cells be 
turned into loyal citizens of heaven ? 

" But," you ask, " will Nero and Paul then both 
be saved ?" That question does not trouble Paul 
as much as it does Mr. Cook. Who would rejoice 
more than Paul if sometime in the sweep of ages, 
his ancient enemy should come purified and pen- 
itent, up to the foot of the throne ? Would Paul 
who gave his life to save just such characters, 
step forward to cast him down ? What revenge 
does any noble soul desire, but that his most 
venemous foe should turn from his sin and live ? 
Paul himself had wrought much evil, had brought 
many a Christian to prison and to death. You 
might ask whether Paul ought to share the heaven 
of the saints he had murdered. Ought the mur- 
derer and his victims, in this case, both to be 
saved ? On one occasion, Paul held the gar- 
ments of the ruffians who beat out Stephen's life, 
and urged them to their bloody work. Upon the 
face of the dying Stephen streamed a light from 



42 - JUSTICE AND MERCY. 

heaven that made his face like the face of an angel. 
But I think that even a brighter radiance than 
this beamed from the face of Stephen when, years 
after, the golden gates flew open, and the spirit of 
his ancient foe entered the kingdom ! In the 
agony of the cross Jesus prayed for his murderers. 
Did he believe that his prayer would be an- 
swered ? Did he want it answered ? If so, the 
day will yet come when the pierced hands of the 
Great Martyr will clasp in forgiveness the hands 
that nailed him to the tree. But those hands will 
be no longer polluted with blood, those hearts 
will be no longer filled with hatred. In the con- 
suming fires of God's unending and tireless love, 
the stains and the evil will have been purged 
away forever ! 



III. 

ENDLESS PUNISHMENT FROM THE STAND- 
POINT OF REASON. 

[Sunday evening, October 26th, 1890.] 

"And why, even of yourselves, judge ye not what 
is right" — Luke 12: 57. 

It is related that " when they dug for the dry 
dock, in the navy yard at New York, they struck 
a central spring, and the engineer said they had 
better have some cement put on it to stop it up. 
They opened a hole and put in some cement, but 
the next morning the cement was gone and the 
spring was bubbling up again. Then the en- 
gineer said there had better be some solid 
masonry to shut down the spring ; so they built it 
in carefully with masonry. The spring waited 
until they got home and then burst out again. 
Then they determined to drive piles down and 
fix it. They did drive piles, and fixed it, but the 
spring bubbled up again just as if it did not care 
anything about engineers or engineering. After 
they had spent some months in trying to stop the 
spring, they built a curb around it and let it run. 
Afterwards they found that it had most of the 
east end of Long Island pushing it out, and no 
piles, nor masonry, nor cement could match the 



44 JUSTICE AND MERCY. 

secret underground force by which it was im- 
pelled." 

Like that protest of the spring against the 
engineers has been the protest of humanity 
against the darker elements of theology, — es- 
pecially against that darkest of all those dark 
elements, endless suffering in the world to come. 
Theologians, like spiritual engineers, have tried 
to stop this protest. They have plastered it over 
with their feeble explanations and apologies. 
They have built around it the masonry of their 
logic. They have driven into it the piles of their 
scriptural texts, but in vain. The entire strength 
of the human intellect and human heart has been 
behind this protest, and the devices of creed- 
makers have been powerless to check it ! 

The doctrine in question has been variously 
stated, and, even to-day, in details, there is ex- 
tensive variation among those who hold it. Some 
consider one thing as essential to a complete 
statement ; others do not. I do not wish to do 
anyone injustice. In all discussions of this kind, 
we should use the utmost fairness. Surely, it is 
in this spirit that I say the following proposition 
is one in which those who hold the doctrine will 
agree : There will be in this universe, suf- 
fering WITHOUT END, INFLICTED BY GOD EITHER 
DIRECTLY OR THROUGH THE OPERATION OF HlS 
LAWS, IN CONSEQUENCE OF SIN. 



STANDPOINT OF REASON. 45 

When they descend into particulars, th ,y differ. 
Those who hold to the theory of a bodily resur- 
rection, might say that some of that suffering 
will be physical : others would say that it will be 
purely mental. Some say that the penalty is in- 
flicted on account of sins committed in this 
world ; others that the habit of sin is unchange- 
ably acquired in this world, and leads to perpet- 
ual sin in that which is to come, — hence, the 
perpetual penalty. This was the phase of the 
subject that we considered last Sunday evening. 

One thing you will observe : that in either case, 

THIS LIFE IS ABSOLUTELY DECISIVE. It fixes the 

status of the soul forever. It determines 
whether the existence that lies beyond the grave 
shall be happy ; or wretched beyond all compu- 
tation, through infinite ages. In the one case, 
the sins are committed here that bring the un- 
ending doom beyond : in the other case, the habit 
becomes fixed here, that leads to the unending 
sin. This incapacity for anything but sin, be- 
comes a part of the penalty. In either case, 
there is no star of hope shining over the grave. 

I have been asked why I spend my time in con- 
troverting a doctrine that is no longer believed ; 
that is really dead. My answer is : In the first 
place, a great many people do believe it. In the 
second place, I am reminded of a story. Some 
one relates that in a thicket on a mountain-side 



46 JUSTICE AND MERCY. 

he once saw a man kill a rattlesnake. He beat 
the life out of it with a club, and then continued 
the pounding until it was mangled beyond recog- 
nition. When the gentleman remonstrated, the 
one who had done the killing said his say in 
seven very significant words : " Ye cayn't kill er 
rattlesnake too dead ! " 

I am also asked why I do not prove my doctrine 
from Scripture. Those who are regular atten- 
dants here, will not charge me with this omission. 
For the benefit of those who are not, I intend to 
preach next Sunday evening a sermon on the 
Scriptural principles that are opposed to what 
Morely calls the " most frightful idea that ever 
corroded human character." 

I view the subject from a rational standpoint 
to-night, because : Reason is the supreme gift 
of God, is itself a revelation. It is that part of 
our nature which links us to Deity, and which 
enables us to pronounce upon his nature and 
works. It is only by using this faculty that we 
can interpret the Bible or any other book ; and 
all our interpretations must proceed upon prin- 
ciples which reason furnishes. The Bible itself 
makes constant appeal to the human intelligence. 
" Come, now, let us reason together." The text 
asks " And why, even of yourselves, judge ye not 
what is right ? " Why do you not use your 
common sense in matters of religion, as well as 



STANDPOINT OF REASON. 47 

in anything else ? No doctrine that reason re- 
pudiates can finally stand, whatever its defenses. 
Such considerations as these make it evident 
that, in the order of logic, a sermon from the 
rational standpoint precedes one from the Scrip- 
tural. 

From this standpoint, I affirm : 

I. The theory which makes this life 

ABSOLUTELY DECISIVE FOR ALL WHO CMOE INTO 
THIS WORLD, DENIES TO MULTITUDES OF OUR 
RACE A FAIR TRIAL. 

I am taking the theory upon its own grounds 
that we are now in a state of probation. What- 
ever may be true in individual cases, or among 
favored peoples, I ask where — upon your own 
theory — is there anything like an adequate pro- 
bation for the vast majority of mankind in all 
ages ? 

It does not consider the millions of the past 
who lived and died without that special light 
which you consider alone sufficient. Have all 
who trod the globe for uncounted centuries be- 
fore the star of Bethlehem arose, gone down to 
the blackness of darkness ? Was the history of 
the world, through all those ages, but a Niagara 
torrent of human souls pouring unenlightened 
into the bottomless abyss ? That is what this 
doctrine says. 



48 JUSTICE AND MERCY. 

It does not consider those nations that since 
the rising of the world's new light, have sat in the 
old shadow ! 

It does not take into account the different cir- 
cumstances of those who are born in Christian 
lands. How often have I watched the snow-flakes 
as they fell upon the earth, coming down — some 
upon the roofs of houses, some in the black mud, 
some upon the barren branches, some upon the 
hard paving-stones ; so, I have thought, are 
human beings flung into this world. They drop 
into the slums of our great cities, they fall upon 
the hardest conditions, they drop into abysses of 
night and ignorance. Some one who gathers up 
poor children from the streets of London and 
gives them a breath of the country in summer, 
relates that a small child remarked : " I didn't 
know people ever didn't live in a street. I never 
saw houses standing by themselves before." Her 
little imagination had never soared above the 
Marylebone back slums in which her whole life 
had been spent. 

Who says that these outcasts of the world are 
to be plunged into deeper sin, and darker night, 
and intenser misery because they were trained in 
ignorance and crime from the very beginning ? 

But we are told, " O there are degrees c*f pen- 
alty — degrees of suffering; they will all be 
judged and condemned according to their light 



STANDPOINT OF REASON. 49 

and opportunity ! " Yes ; but still condemned, 
and condemned forever ! They are all in per- 
dition under sentences equally long ; sentences 
that never expire. Of two men who are serving 
life terms in the penitentiary, one man is having 
severer labor ; the work of the other may be 
comparatively light. But they are both in the 
penitentiary for life. Make the penalty of those 
who had no light or opportunity here as easy as 
you please, it is still a penalty that stretches 
through eternity. Mitigate, if you well can do 
so, the lot of your prisoner ; that does not take 
him out of prison. Give him a softer cot and 
better fare than others have ; the walls still rise 
grim and impassablea round him, and there they 
will stand while stands the throne of God ! 

"Well," you say, " we are willing to leave these 
souls in the hands of God ! " No, you are not. 
That is precisely what you are not willing to do ! 
Your theory insists on telling exactly what has 
become of them. It does not leave them in the 
hands of God, but in the hands of the devil. That 
is my objection. 

A theory that insists that this life is a proba- 
tion, and yet denies a fair probation to the im- 
mense majority of the human race, — is a theory 
that the reason rejects. 

II. The doctrine not only denies to mul- 
titudes A FAIR TRIAL, BUT IN ANY CASE, IT IN- 
4 



50 JUSTICE AND MERCY, 

FLICTS UPON THE SINNER A PENALTY THAT IS OUT 
OF ALL PROPORTION TO THE OFFENCE. 

If it is for the sins of this life that he suffers, I 
insist that a man can not perpetrate wickedness 
enough in three-score years and ten to require 
billions upon billions of ages to settle the 
account. The penalty of one sinner would more 
than equal all the suffering that has cursed this 
world from the beginning. 

If I am told that it is not alone for the sins of 
this mortal life, but also for those he commits 
over there, — that the inveterate inclination to sin 
is itself a part of his penalty, — then I say that to 
punish sin by making additional sin a necessity, 
is as if a human judge should punish a thief by 
making it necessary for him to steal in future ; 
should punish a murderer by making it inevitable 
for him to kill. 

If I am told again that the sins are of the cul- 
prit's own choosing, — that here and hereafter he 
freely follows the evil, and that God simply lets 
him go his way, and does not interfere, — this is 
my answer. A father finds that his son is resolved 
upon some desperate deed. What will he do ? 
If he has any interest in that son, he will not rest 
day or night until he has done all in his power to 
save that boy. He will not let him go his way 
without interference. Will God do less for his 
children ? And if he does all in his power to 



STANDPOINT OF REASON. 51 

save, what will be the probable — nay, the certain, 
result ? 

Such penalty serves no good object ? It is 
utterly senseless and without purpose. If it is to 
gratify vengeance on the part of God, then it 
makes him cruel ! It is hatred and not love that 
sways the scepter. If you insist upon substituting 
the word "justice" for the word "vengeance," 
you have gained nothing. You have simply ex- 
changed terms. You have, instead of putting 
new wine into old bottles, put the old wine — the 
wine of wrath — into new bottles. The wine is 
the same. The hideous reality — the thing itself, 
is unchanged. Cruelty by any other name is still 
cruelty. 

Mr. Beecher well said : " You may crown the 
devil by as many names as you please, I will not 
worship him. I will not worship cruelty or ven- 
geance ; I will not worship self adulation or self- 
conceit ; I will not worship mere power ; but I 
will worship goodness that carries with it self- 
respect, and authority, and government, and 
command, and threat and execution ; I will wor- 
ship goodness that, governing through long peri- 
ods, and through many generations, is patient 
and long-suffering, and abundant in mercy and 
goodness, seeking man's augmentation, purifica- 
tion, ennobling, and immortality. That God 
whose name is Love : that God, if you choose to 



52 JUSTICE AND MERCY. 

call him so, who is consuming fire (for what con- 
sumes like the fire of love ? What is so search- 
ing, so cleansing, so stimulating, as that ?) that 
God whose name is power — power in love ; that 
God whose name is justice — the justice of love ; 
that God who when all the earth has presented its 
aspects, its symbols, its experiences, and these 
have been clustered into one great, memorable 
name — is still the nameless Grod, standing in 
eternity and saying, ' I am what I am,' — that God 
by his grandeur subdues my soul. Him I love. 
To him I yield up my personality and to none 
other ! " 

If the object of this penalty is to keep the good 
from falling, — if the sight of suffering be neces- 
sary to keep them good, — of what use has their 
own probation been ? To what purpose the dis- 
cipline through which they have passed ? Are 
their characters still so unstable and unsettled 
that the sight of the lash and flame is a perpetual 
necessity ? Is heaven only safe as long as hell 
roars and crackles beneath it ? Are some souls 
suffering only that others may not fall ? Are they 
enduring their agonies for the sake of others ? If 
this be true, the spirits in torment are martyrs and 
not criminals. They are more worthy of honor 
than the weak saints who must be propped up in 
glory by the sight of their torture. If this pen- 
alty is to enhance the joy of the redeemed — as 



STANDPOINT OF REASON. 53 

Jonathan Edwards and many others used to 
teach — then one would better be in hell than in 
a heaven of immortal selfishness. But if heaven 
be what we hope and believe, such penalty would 
make misery within the everlasting gates. Who 
would be willing to think of his worst foe suffer- 
ing without purpose and without remedy ? Is 
the spirit of vengeance to be cherished by the re- 
deemed ? Is hatred, the desire for retaliation, 
condemned by Christianity on earth, to be made 
immortal, crowned and honored in heaven ? Who 
could think of his friends, of those he loves, as 
writhing in this helpless condition without God 
and without hope ? 

We sympathize with Robert Falconer who said 
one day, that if he were admitted to heaven, the 
very first night he sat down with the rest of them, 
he would rise up and say (if the Master at the 
head of the table did not bid him sit down): 
" Brothers and sisters, harken to me for one 
minute. We are here by grace and not by merit. 
It rives my heart to think of those who are down 
there. I call upon each one of you who has 
friends or neighbors down yonder, to rise up and 
taste nor bite nor sup, till we all go together to 
the foot of the throne, and pray the Lord to let 
us go and do as the Master did before us, and 
bear their griefs and carry their sorrows down in 
hell there, if it may be that they will repent." 



54 JUSTICE AND MERCY. 

We exclaim with Andrew Rykman : 

" Let me find the humblest place, 
In the shadow of thy grace; 
If there be some weaker one, 
Give me grace to help him on ; 
If some blinder soul there be, 
Let me guide him nearer thee." 

A noble sentiment comes to us from the 7th 
century : " Never will I seek nor receive private, 
individual salvation, never enter into final peace 
alone ; but forever and everywhere, will I live and 
strive for the universal redemption of every 
creature, throughout all worlds. While one re- 
mains outcast, I will count myself as last. Until 
all are delivered, I will never leave the field of 
sin, sorrow, and struggle." 

Those who stand crowned with light, will only 
be happy when they know that all the rest are on 
the way to the same heights. It is related that 
at the battle of Missionary Ridge, the " soldiers 
started up the hill, and one detachment, breaking 
away from the others, pushed on through the 
murderous, raking fire, until they reached the 
very top of the cliff itself, and standing within a 
few yards of the confederate headquarters, plant- 
ed there on the mountain-top the stars and 
stripes ; and when they were run up and seen 
flying on the top of the mountain, cheer after 
cheer arose from the men who were in the valley 
below, where still the hot shot and the cannon 



STANDPOINT OF REASON 55 

were raking with their murderous fire ; impossible 
to be held back by the orders that had been 
issued, they rushed forward until they stood by 
the side of the old flag, and the day was won ! " 
Those who have won the victory and reached the 
top, will never be content while a single comrade 
struggles through the flame and smoke of the 
valley ! 

The only end for which penalty ought to be 
inflicted in a perfect government is, not retalia- 
tion, but reformation. Justice, in the true sense, 
is satisfied with the repentance and amendment 
of the evil-doer. Reformation, righteousness, 
should be the end. There may be some who 
ought to suffer longer and more severely than 
others, but not for always. 

Reason rejects a penalty that is out of all pro- 
portion to the offence, and that fails to subserve 
a worthy purpose. 

III. Penalty, upon the common theory, not 

ONLY FAILS AS I HAVE JUST DESCRIBED, BUT IT 
IMPUGNS THE CHARACTER OF GOD. 

It robs him either of his goodness or his 

POWER. 

I would rather be a heathen, living in a land 
where the name of Christ has never been heard, — 
where his views of the Father have never been 
promulgated, — a heathen bowing before the 
hideous deities of my own brain and hands, than 



56 JUSTICE AND MERCY. 

to believe that the character of our Father in 
heaven is such as the popular creed has made 
it, — a God who is so unjust or indifferent as to 
permit sin and suffering always to exist, or so 
helpless that he cannot prevent it. 

We are told that evil exists here and now under 
the same administration. What if it does ? The 
problem of evil here is very different from the 
problem of evil hereafter, and evil forever. Evil 
temporary, evil that serves to bring out the good, 
that furnishes the opportunity for discipline, that, 
as Emerson says, is "good in the making," — is a 
very different thing from evil that is useless and 
endless — evil that only sears and burns and 
hardens and scorches and weighs down, to all 
eternity the hapless wretches who are forbidden 
to conquer it, and who wculd receive no divine 
help if they made the effort. " The wrath of 
man " that is made to praise God in this world, is 
different from the " wrath " that is made to curse 
him forever in the next. 

It is asserted that God has the right to do with 
us as he chooses. We are his creatures. If he 
condemns us and makes us suffer forever, it is 
well. With all reverence, no ; he has no such 
right. The fact that he has brought us into this 
world, upon the contrary, lays him under obliga- 
tion to give us somewhere, a fair chance and 
ample opportunity, to learn his will and do it. It 



STANDPOINT OF REASON. 57 

binds him to seek our good and only our good. 
We are something more than blocks that the car- 
ver may cast into the fire after his first trial is un- 
successful : we are living material that he will 
fashion at last into his own glorious likeness. 

But may not a Father chastise ? Yes ; chas- 
tise, but not torment ; chastise, but not forever ; 
chastise, but always to correct. 

I am told, however, that whatever befalls the 
soul, God is not to blame. He does give time and 
opportunity. If we do not improve them the fault 
is ours. Dr. Nehemiah Adams was wont to use 
this illustration: "A railroad train is advertised 
to start at a certain hour. If we are there a min- 
ute too late, we lose our opportunity of going up- 
on an important journey. We think this rea- 
sonable. Why, then should we think it unreason- 
able for God to make us lose our chance for 
eternity, if we do not take the opportunity during 
life?" 

This is my answer : I am going from here to 
Chicago. 'I miss my train. Very good ; that is 
my lookout. I am the loser, and it is my fault. 
Now, carry out Dr. Adams' parallel. Because I 
have missed my train once, the company resolves 
never to sell me another ticket, never to give me 
another opportunity of riding upon their lines, and 
so far as lies in their power, decree that I never 
shall have another chance of getting to Chicago ! 



58 JUSTICE AND MERCY. 

I say any railroad management that would pursue, 
such a policy, would be idiotic to the last degree, 
and base beyond all power of expression ! And 
yet it is this hypothetical piece of miserable hu- 
man stupidity and meanness that Dr. Adams 
chooses whereby to " vindicate the ways of God 
to men." He would have to go far before he 
could find a more imbecile illustration ! 

This theory robs God, not only of his goodness, 
but also of his power. It says that he will always 
have a rival in his own universe. There will 
always be rebellion. If so, who can tell whether 
his throne will be secure or not ? 

In view of the considerations given, in the name 
of reason, I deny this terrible doctrine. I deny it 
in the name of human nature, — in the name of 
those unfortunates it has sent to the mad-house, 
in the name of the homes it has hung with mid- 
night, the hopes it has blasted, the hearts it has 
torn ; in the name of humanity among whose best 
affections it has scattered the fire of cruelty and 
hatred, turning the hand of man against his 
brother, lighting the fires of persecution, un- 
sheathing the sword of the fanatic, erecting the 
gibbet and building the inquisition ; in the name 
of God himself, I deny this outrage of the ages, 
this nightmare of the centuries, this madness of 
theology, this insanity of the creeds, this blot up- 
on the history of human thought, this stain upon 



STANDPOINT OF REASON. 59 

the Divine government, this insult to Jehovah ! 
In the name of all that is pure and lovely and of 
good report, I deny the hideous theory which 
turns the Universal Father into an Almighty 
fiend, which turns a God of love into a God of 
hatred, which makes the beneficent ruler of the 
world, a vengeful and malignant being, worse — 
infinitely worse — than all the Atillas, and Tor- 
quemadas, and kings of Dahomey, and Thugs of 
India, and Assassins of Arabia, and French Rev- 
olutionary tribunals, and American slave-hunters, 
with their blood-hounds thrown in — worse than 
these most cruel and devilish examples of earthly 
cruelty and devilishness rolled into one ! 

On the other hand, I affirm that the only reas- 
onable outcome to those who believe in immor- 
tality at all, is the triumph of good over evil in 
every soul and throughout the universe. I affirm 
that the spirit of love which is manifested in all 
human relationships, that is especially manifested 
in such souls as Xavier, Paul and Jesus, will 
search every wilderness on every planet, will 
scour perdition itself, to find the last lost sheep ! 

I believe that the cry of the Lost Soul, in 
Whittier's poem, will sooner or later be the hum- 
ble and honest prayer of every one who has 
wandered from God and righteousness : 

" ' Father of all,' he urges his strong plea, 
" ' Thou lovest all : thy erring child may be 
Lost to himself, but never lost to thee ! 



60 JUSTICE AND MERCY. 

" ' All souls are thine ; the wings of morning bear 
None from that presence which is everywhere ; 
Nor hell itself can hide ; for Thou art there. 

"'Through sins of sense, perversities of will, 

Through doubt and pain, through guilt and shame 

and ill, 
Thy pitying eye is on thy creature still. 

" ' Wilt thou not make, Eternal source and goal, 
In thy long years, life's broken circle whole ? 
And change to praise the cry of a lost soul ? ' " 

And only when the cry of that soul is 
changed to praise, will the universe ring 
with the final shout of victory. 



IV. 

ENDLESS PUNISHMENT FROM THE STAND- 
POINT OF SCRIPTURE. 

[Sunda\- evening, November 2nd, 1890.] 
" All souls are mine!' — Ezekiel 18 : 4. 

Standing beneath the venerable arches of Eng- 
land's most notable cathedral, Westminster 
Abbey, the present arch-deacon Farrar, some 
years ago, uttered these remarkable words : " I 
ask you, my brethren, very solemnly, where 
would be the popular teaching about hell, if we 
calmly and deliberately erased from our English 
Bibles the three words ' damnation ' and ' hell ' 
and 'everlasting' ? Yet I say unhesitatingly ; I 
say, claiming a full right to speak with the 
authority of knowledge ; I say with the calmest 
and most unflinching sense of the responsibility ; 
I say, standing here in the sight of God and of 
my Savior, and, it may be, of the angels and 
spirits of the dead, that not one of those words 
ought to stand any longer in the English Bible ; 
and that, being in our present acceptation of 
them, mere mistranslations, they most unques- 
tionably will not stand in the revised version of 
the Bible, if the revisers have understood their 
duty." 



62 JUSTICE AND MERCY. 

The revisers only in part understood their duty ; 
but they certainly have swept away much of the 
harsh phraseology which disfigures the King 
James version, and have replaced it by terms 
which better represent the spirit of the Great 
Book. Some of these changes we shall consider 
as we proceed. 

In discussing the subject of endless punishment 
from the Scriptural standpoint, several things 
must be borne in mind. 

I do not assume that the Bible from beginning 
to end is an absolutely infallible book, — that 
every statement is to pass unchallenged. 

The Bible was not manufactured at once, per- 
fect and complete, and let down bodily from the 
skies. It is a growth and not a creation. It re- 
cords the history and legends of the race that 
God trained to give the world religion, and the 
development of their ideas, from the crude and 
even savage notions of the earliest and rudest 
ages, up to the sublime conceptions of the pro- 
phets and of Jesus himself. Not all parts of the 
Bible, therefore, are of equal value and authority; 
and the worth of a proof-text depends. 

Then, too, the individual passage must be 
looked upon in its relation to the great trend of 
thought. The eddies by the side of the stream, 
that seem to turn backward sometimes, must not 
be permitted to take our attention from the great 



STANDPOINT OF SCRIPTURE. 63 

river that flows resistlessly to the sea. As Mr. 
Barnum says, in his recent pamphlet, " I have 
only contempt for a fusillade of texts, or a culling 
out one here and there regardless of contexts ; or 
an exegesis which makes one text which is a 
statement of some old fighting Hebrew's con- 
ception of his God as ' angry endlessly,' outweight 
fifty texts stating his better conception that 'His 
mercy endureth forever.' " 

I do not assume that the object of the Bible is to 
teach systematic theology. It is not. It is the 
book of life. It is the noblest literature of the 
moral and spiritual nature. 

God is in this book because he was, first of all, 
in the experiences that are here recorded. His 
life pulsated in the love, and joy, and hope, and 
aspiration, that are here expressed. The noblest 
passages of the Bible are written in the language 
of emotion and not in the language of precise and 
scientific thought. The difference between the 
Bible and systematic theology is the difference 
between a flower, in the meadow, by the brook- 
side, where its roots drink moisture and its petals 
unfold in the sunlight, and the same flower after it 
has been plucked and dried and laid away in a book. 

For this reason, I somewhat shrink from a 
discussion in which it may be necessary to pluck 
some of these flowers and subject them to botan- 
ical analysis. 



64 JUSTICE AND MERCY. 

But I now affirm, that notwithstanding the two 
statements I have just made, i. e. that there are 
some ideas of the earlier times that do not 
harmonize with those of the latest times ; and 
that much of what is written is the language of 
strong emotion (so that in denouncing sin, one 
might expect emphatic and even exaggerated* 
censure ) ; notwithstanding all this, I affirm that 
the doctrine of endless punishment is not to be found in 
these pages! 

It is not to be found in the records of the bar- 
barous beginnings. The man of that day, indeed, 
imagined that God gave him command to despoil 
and even to slaughter his enemies ; but the work 
of vengeance ended upon earth, and was not con- 
tinued beyond the grave. So that the warlike 
Israelite of some milenniums past, was really in 
advance of the modern creeds that declare an 
eternity of torture. David invoked some terrible 
anathemas upon his foes; but he wanted the 
plagues rained upon them here, in a horrible tem- 
pest that he could see. It was present and in- 
stantaneous retribution for which he prayed ; not 
future and endless. This spirit was far enough 
from the spirit of Christ and is not to be justified; 
but it was immeasurably better than the dispo- 
sition which would add to the sin and misery of 
this life, the sin and misery of a world without 
end. 



STANDPOINT OF SCRIPTURE. 65 

Let us now take in our hands the Revised Ver- 
sion of the New Testament. With the changes 
that the revisers have made either in the text or 
in the margin, it will not be necessary for any one 
to read Greek in order to appreciate the prin- 
ciples I shall lay down. 

I When the word " eternal " is applied 

TO THE TERMS " LIFE " AND "DEATH," IT IS NOT 
PRIMARILY DURATION, BUT QUALITY, THAT IS MEANT. 

Eternal life is not life that stretches cease- 
lessly onward, but life that is worth prolongation. 

" This is life eternal, to know thee, the only true 
God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent." 
John"] ;j. 

In what does this knowledge consist ? John 
tells us what it is to know God : " Beloved, let 
us love one another, for love is of God ; and every 
one that loveth is begotten of God, and knoweth 
God. He that loveth not, knoweth not God, for 
God is love." I John 4: J. 

What is it to know Christ ? Let . Peter give 
answer : " Add to your faith virtue, and to virtue 
knowledge, and to knowledge temperance, and to 
temperance patience, and to patience godliness, 
and to godliness brotherly kindness, and to 
brotherly kindness charity. For if these things 
be in you and abound, they make you that ye 
shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowl- 
edge of our Lord Jesus Christ." 2 Pet. 1 : 5-7 

5 



66 JUSTICE AND MERCY. 

This character is life eternal. The opposite of 
it is death. This life and death are enjoyed or 
suffered here. So some are spoken of as having 
eternal life abiding in them now ; others are abid- 
ing even no\v in death. How long these states 
'may continue, or whether a man may pass from 
one into the other, these expressions themselves 
do not determine. They give us quality and 
nothing else. "We live in deeds, not years ; in 
thoughts, not breaths ; in feelings, not in figures 
on a dial. He most lives who feels most, thinks 
the noblest, acts the best." 

I may say right here that the Bible deals less 
with the future than we commonly suppose. Its 
aim is not to map out the soul's condition here- 
after ; but to regenerate and purify and build up 
into righteousness the soul of man on this side of 
the horizon. " When I talked with an ardent mis- 
sionary," says Emerson, " and pointed out to him 
that this creed found no support in my experience, 
he replied, ' It is not so in your experience, but it 
is so in the other world.' ' Other world ! ' I ex- 
claimed, 'There is no other world; God is one 
and omnipresent ; here or nowhere is the entire 
fact."' "This world is the next world," says the 
Indian proverb. Omar Kayam sings : 

"I sent my soul into the invisible, 

Some letter of that after life to spell; 
And by and by my soul returned to me, 
And whispered, I myself am heaven or hell." 



STANDPOINT OF SCRIPTURE. 67 

II. When the idea of duration is involved 

IN THE WORD "ETERNAL," IT IS INDEFINITE, 
NEVER ENDLESS. 

Right here the revision will help us. I do not 
think that those who did this work accomplished 
their full duty. Perhaps the pressure upon them 
was too great. But much of the scholarship that 
was frightened out of the text has taken refuge 
in the marginal notes. 

Take an example: "Whosoever shall speak 
against the Holy Spirit, it shall not be forgiven 
him, neither in this world nor in that which is to 
come." Mat. 12: J2. In the margin we find 
"age" instead of "world." Turn to the parallel 
passage in Mark: "Whosoever shall blaspheme 
against the Holy Spirit hath never forgiveness, 
but is guilty of an eternal sin." Mark j : 2Q. But 
the adjective in Mark is formed from the noun in 
Matthew. If the noun means "age," the adjec- 
tive means "age-long." In both cases the word 
is indefinite. The reduplication "this age or the 
next" intensifies the heinousness of the sin, but 
does not leave it without hope of remedy in the 
sweep of ages. 

The duration depends upon the nattire of the 
thing of which this adjective is descriptive. 

The fire which burned Sodom and Gomorrah 
was called " eternal fire." Jude says : " Even as 
Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities about them 



68 JUSTICE AND MERCY. 

* * are set forth as an example, suffering the 
punishment of eternal fire." v. J. But in this 
case the fire only burned till the work of destruc- 
tion was complete. 

But we are asked, if the word is indefinite what 
security have God, a?id heaven, a?id the righteotis i?i 
the next world; for the same term is used to des-' 
cribe the duration of each ? 

Are you afraid, because the hills are said to be 
" everlasting," and yet crumble, that God's throne 
also must crumble ? The words that describe 
them are the same ; but is there not something in 
the throne of God more durable than the hills ? 
Are you afraid that because Canaan was given to 
the Jews for an " everlasting " possession, and yet 
they were driven out and scattered, that the " city 
which hath foundations, whose builder and maker 
is God," the city that shall be the inheritance of 
his saints, is also in danger ? Are you afraid, be- 
cause the same indefinite term is applied to sin 
and righteousness, that if sin comes to an end 
righteousness must also cease ? Is there not a 
persistent, indestructible, immortal quality in 
righteousness, that sin does not possess ? Will 
the sunlight of heaven fade away, if the lurid 
flames of hell are extinguished ? Does this in- 
definite term so link together God and Satan, life 
and death, rapture and torment, virtue and vice, 
paradise and the pit, that the former can exist 



STANDPOINT OF SCRIPTURE. 69 

only while the latter abide ? Believe it not. 
There is something in the very nature of each 
that decides the period of its "age-long" dur- 
ation. 

" Thank God," exclaims Farrar, " I do not rest 
my own hopes of seeing God's face forever here- 
after on the ten times refuted attempts to read 
false meanings into the Greek Lexicon, in order 
to support a system far darker than St. Augus- 
tine's from whose mistaken literalism it took its 
disastrous origin." 

But we need not stop here. There are other 
words in the New Testament, stronger words, so 
far as duration is concerned, that are applied to God 
and goodness. They are the words that are trans- 
lated unfading, immortal, imperishable. And 
these words are never applied to sin and penalty. 
" Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord 
Jesus Christ, who, according to his abundant 
mercy, hath begotten us again to a lively hope, 
* * to an inheritance, incorruptible, undeflled, 
and that fadeth not away? I Pet.i.-j-f. "And 
when the chief shepherd shall appear, ye shall re- 
ceive a crown of glory that fadeth not away? I 
Pet. 5:4. "Now unto the King Eternal, immor- 
tal, invisible, the only wise God, be honor and 
glory forever and ever." 1 Tim. 1: iy. "And 
changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an 
image made like to corruptible man." Rom. 1 : 



70 JUSTICE AND MERCY. 

2j. " Now they do it to obtain a corruptible 
crown, but we an incorruptible" I Cor. g: 25. 
11 The dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we 
shall be changed. For this corruptible must put 
on i?icorruptio?i and this mortal immortality. So 
when this corruptible shall have put on incor- 
ruption, and this mortal immortality, then shall 
be brought to pass the saying that is written, 
Death is swallowed up in Victory ! " 1 Cor. 15; 51- 

54- 

None of the terms which are here employed, 
and which are used to qualify God, and the state 
of the righteous hereafter, are ever employed to 
denote the duration of evil ! We are, therefore, 
doubly assured that God shall live and that right- 
eousness shall live, while sin must perish and 
suffering cease. The throne of God and the 
throne of iniquity do not rest on the same 
foundation. The bliss of the righteous and the 
woe of the wicked do not run parallel through 
endless ages. 

III. Let us now pass from the adjective 
to the noun — to the words that, in the 
King James are all alike translated " hell." 

There are three ; two of them of Pagan, and 
one of Jewish origin. Here the Revision helps by 
sometimes giving the correct translation, and 
always by placing the correct word in the mar- 
gin. 



STANDPOINT OF SCRIPTURE. 71 

The first of these words is used but once. " For 
if God spared not the angels when they sinned, 
but cast them down to hell and committed them 
to pits of darkness, to be reserved unto the judg- 
ment." 2 Pet. 2: 4. In this case, the margin in- 
forms us that the word translated hell is Tar- 
tarus. And what was Tartarus ? In classic my- 
thology, the prison of the Gods, the place into 
which they cast their foes. Even if Peter be- 
lieved the ancient fable, he declares in these very 
epistles that Christ himself went and preached to 
the spirits in prison. The fate of the captives in 
Tartarus could not have been so dreadful and 
desperate, if the light of his countenance illu- 
mined the dungeons, and the sound of his voice 
made melody among the gloomy rafters. If 
Peter believed the very worst that the pagan 
imagination had pictured concerning these 
dungeons of their deities, he embraced the refor- 
mation of those convicts in the redeeming work 
of him. who came to seek and to save that which 
was lost ! 

The second word translated hell, is Hades. 
This also is introduced from pagan mythology. 
It signifies in general the world of departed spirits, 
without regard to condition. Sometimes, indeed, 
that condition was indicated ; for Hades had a 
line of division running through it. It was in 
Hades where the rich man "lifted up his eyes, 



72 JUSTICE AND MERCY. 

being in torments," — in that divison of Hades 
assigned to the wicked. The purpose of this 
parable was not to indorse the heathen Hades, 
but to employ it as a symbol of the great law of 
compensation. Suffering worth and pampered 
selfishness change conditions. Sin is punished 
and righteousness rewarded. Those who in this 1 
life granted no favors to the weak and despised, 
may have to ask them in the next. They shall 
learn what their own conduct meant. The suffer- 
ing they caused others shall visit their own souls. 
The sword they whetted for their neighbor shall 
pierce their own hearts. The one shall be com- 
forted, the other tormented. This is the gist of 
the parable. Christ simply retained the pagan ele- 
ments, the impassable dividing gulf among them, 
without intending to sanction all the details ; as 
any one to-day might use, by w r ay of illustration, 
a story from the Greek or Indian mythology to 
enforce some important truth. The rabbis used 
to teach that " there is only a space of two fingers 
breadth between hell and heaven ; the sinner has 
but to repent sincerely, and the gates to ever- 
lasting bliss will spring open." 

There is one element, however, in the story 
that has never been sufficiently considered, and 
that does not leave us without hope, even in the 
case of Dives, — his concern for his- brethren. 
The feeling of human sympathy is still strong. 



STANDPOINT OF SCRIPTURE. 73 

He forgets his own pain to plead for those he has 
left behind. Let them not come to this place of 
torment. O father Abraham, send some one to 
warn them. Let Lazarus go. Spare them the 
agony that I am undergoing ! I have never been 
quite satisfied with Abraham's answer. I think 
he might have been a little more generous, — but 
let that go. I do say there is hope for any one 
who has not lost the power of sympathy and 
love, — whose affection for his brothers is so great 
that he would spare them the agony which is up- 
on him. Such a heart was not permanently hard. 
Such a nature could not have been incorrigibly 
wicked. If those feelingsof yearninglovecan exist 
in hell, — if the souls in torment are so full of pity 
that they want to send missionaries to earth, — if 
they desire the gospel preached to those who are 
still in the flesh, — then I say that Hades, and the 
worst compartment of Hades, is to be preferred 
to any church on earth whose members are so 
obdurate and hardened and inexorable in their 
views of the future that they would not return the 
favor by allowing the gospel to be preached in 
hell ! For such a soul as that of Dives, a soul so 
solicitous for those who are treading the paths of 
sin and selfishness, sometime in the sweep of 
ages, a way will be found to cross that bridgeless 
gulf! 

The third word translated Hell is Gehenna. 



74 JUSTICE AND MBRCY. 

This is the word that has made most of the 
trouble ; but this word is always placed in the 
margin as " Gehenna." 

What was the origin of this term and how came 
it to be applied to the consequences of sin ? A 
writer in the Popular Science Mo?ithly for last 
August, says: "This latter designation means 
the valley of the Son of Hinnom, and was orig- 
inally the name of a gorge outside of Jerusalem, 
in which the Jews had practiced the fiery worship 
of Moloch, and where afterwards offal from the 
city and the bodies of criminals were thrown to 
be consumed by the fires always kept burning 
there." Here burned the fire that was not 
quenched. Here rioted the worm that never 
died. Jesus took this place as a symbol of the 
soul filled with iniquity and blazing with the fires 
of remorse and retribution. 

I was interested in reading, about a year ago, a 
letter from a missionary of the American Board, 
in which he says : " While in Palestine, I have 
watched with great interest the repeated ' border- 
ing off of the flocks from the kids,' as day by day 
the former were led out to pasture, and the latter 
left at home. The scene at the mouth of the 
little caves adjoining the old potter's furnace, 
which gave name to Gehenna or Hell, I shall not 
forget. The kids are obstreporous little fellows, 
getting into mischief, and withal not able to stand 



STANDPOINT OF SCRIPTURE. 75 

the journey of the day. The Arab boys and dogs 
had a long tug at the work of keeping back the 
kids who must spend the day in or at the mouth 
of these dismal caves. One of the caves opens 
into the place where the fires of hell used to be, 
but it is walled up sufficient to keep the kids from 
falling in and breaking their necks. On one oc- 
casion I saw a flock of sheep peacefully feeding 
on the grass growing upon the top of hell, whose 
fires were long ago extinct." 

That from a missionary of the American Board! 
One would have thought the paper would have 
refused to publish it. It might unsettle some- 
body, to find that the real, genuine and original 
hell, was at Jerusalem ; that it is now grown over 
with grass, and that its fires are extinct ! So will 
the fires of which this was but the symbol become 
extinct. Those flames of Gehenna even w r hile 
they burned were flames of purifying, consuming 
the filth, preserving the city. 

IV. This leads me to say that often the 

WORDS WHICH ARE USED IN SCRIPTURE TO DE- 
NOTE PUNISHMENT, CONTAIN THE IDEA OF "RE- 
FORMATION." 

Let us take but a single example, that famous 
passage "These shall go away into everlasting 
punishment, but the righteous into life eternal." 
Prof. Taylor Lewis, an orthodox commentator, 
says: "These shall go away into the punish- 



76 JUSTICE AND MERCY. 

ment of the world to come, and those into the 
life of the world to come. That is all that we can 
etymologically or exegetically make of this pas- 
sage." 

But no ; we can make something more. For 
the word which is translated " punishment " is the 
Greek word for " pruning." Prof. Plumptre says : 
"There were two words which the evangelist 
might have used, kolasis, timoria, — of these the 
first carries with it by the definition of the great- 
est of Greek ethical writers, the idea of a refor- 
matory process. It is inflicted for the sake of 
him who suffers it. The second, on the other 
hand, describes a penalty purely vindictive or re- 
tributive. St. Matthew chose — if we believe that 
our Lord spoke Greek, he chose — the former 
word and not the latter." Dean Trench says the 
same. 

When, therefore, the Judge in the parable pro- 
nounced his sentence, he bade the unrighteous 
depart to a place where their sins and errors and 
iniquities might be cut away, and they, like trees 
after pruning, develop into better and more fruit- 
ful life. 

May I pause here for a moment, to say again 
what I have said so often, and what, I fear, must 
be said thousands of times more, that 

( I.) No other church believes so firmly, so 
unequivocally in punishment for sin as does this 



STANDPOINT OF SCRIPTURE. 77 

church ! We believe that it is personal; that it 
belongs to the individual, in such a sense that no 
vicarious arrangement can be made for its re- 
moval. "Every man must bear his own burden." 
The only way to escape is to escape from sin. To 
this the influence of Christ may lead, not as sub- 
stitute, but as example, teacher, inspiration. 

( 2.) That it extends, if necessary, into the next 
world. 

(3.) That it lasts as long as si?i lasts. 

( 4.) That its object, in the perfect govern- 
ment of God is remedial and not retaliatory, to re- 
move and not to perpetuate evil. 

Deal with us fairly. I do not ask any one to 
accept this view ; I only ask that, in speaking of 
the utterances that go forth from this pulpit, they 
be not misrepresented. Time after time, I have 
been compelled to hear the miserable slander, 
" O you preach that a man may do anything he 
likes, and go to heaven without suffering for it ! " 
If I ever preached such an idiotic doctrine as that 
may my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth, and 
my right hand forget her cunning ! I fling the 
wretched falsehood back into the faces of the 
ignorant or malicious traducers who made it. 
" O you open the doors indiscriminately and 
sweep the gold with the dross into Paradise ! " 
Never ! It is not we who send the reeking mur- 
derer directly from the gallows to glory. We 



78 JUSTICE AND MERCY. 

insist that the dross shall be purged away, we in- 
sist upon the refiner's fire. " Our God is a con- 
suming fire," who will burn the evil till it is 
removed. Not till the last sin has been forsaken, 
not until the last evil thought and desire have 
died, will the so'ul's happiness be complete. But 
after sinners have passed through the fires of re-' 
pentance and purification, who then would deny 
them Paradise ? 

The editor of the New York Observer recently 
said : " I loathe the thought of spending an 
eternity in the company of Judas." But if Judas 
shall have repented, why loathe more the thought 
of spending an eternity in his company than in 
that of Peter who denied his Lord and afterwards 
repented ? I look with hope even upon Judas. 
Great as was his crime, it was not beyond mercy. 
Narrow, ignorant, avaricious — he did a deed that 
well may rouse our indignation, even to-day. But 
Judas repented. He went back to the chief 
priests and flung at their feet the price of his 
treason. Smitten with remorse, he went and 
hanged himself. If he had gone to Christ, he would 
have been pardoned at that moment as freely as 
was Peter. That pardon he will yet receive, if it 
has not already been given. That was an awful 
scene in Gethsemane, when the black-browed 
traitor exclaimed "Hail Master!" and kissed 
him, — the foul lips smirching the face of the 



STANDPOINT OF SCRIPTURE. 79 

Innocent One ! How indignant we feel ! But 
there is a nobler scene than that, one which thrills 
with grander music the higher chords of our 
nature. Look, Judas emerges at last, slowly, 
slowly, from the gehenna of remorse, the flames 
of conscience, and rises upward. The dark look 
has gone. The eye is no longer averted, but 
seems searching for some familiar object. Ah, 
there is some one coming to meet him, whose 
radiant face makes all around it light. It is he 
whom Judas betrayed. They meet, and upon the 
lips that once gave the traitor's kiss Jesus prints 
the kiss of forgiveness, — the kiss of reconcili- 
ation. But the lips of Judas are now loyal for- 
ever ! 

V. But there is one consideration beyond 

ALL THAT I HAVE ALREADY MENTIONED : THE 
CHARACTER OF GOD. 

This is shown in the terms by which lie is re- 
vealed; " Father," " Love." Whatever you give 
up, hold on forever to that conception of Him. 

It is shown in what he requires of us. If he says 
to us, "Forgive your enemies," he will not visit 
his own with eternal torments. 

Whittier sings : 

"Believe and trust. Through stars and suns, 

Through life and death, through soul and sense. 
His wise, paternal purpose runs ; 
The darkness of his providence 
Is star-lit with benign intents. 



80 JUSTICE AND MERCY. 

" joy supreme ! I know the voice, 
Like none beside on earth or sea; 
Yea, more, soul of mine, rejoice! 
By all that he requires of me, 
I know what God himself must be." 

With this thought of the Divine character 
written in their hearts, holy men of old looked 
forward and beheld in prophetic vision, the glad 
day of final restoration! 

" Having made known to us the mystery of his 
will according to his good pleasure, which he 
hath purposed in himself, that in the dispensation 
of the fulness of times, he might gather to- 
gether in one, all things in Christ both which are 
in heaven and which are on earth, even in him." 
Eph. i : q-io. 

To the things in heaven and things on earth that 
are to glorify God the Father, Paul adds ( Phil. 2; . 
q-io ), " Things under the earth " also ! 

The poet Moore sings : 

" Well might the loves rejoice, and well did they 

Who wove these fables picture in their weaving, 
That blessed truth which, in a darker day, 

Origen lost his saintship for believing, 
That love, eternal love, whose fadeless ray, 

Nor time, nor death, nor sin, can overcast, 
Even to the depths of hell will find his way, 

And soothe, and heal, and triumph there at last ! " 

Take this passage also : " For he must reign 
till he hath put all enemies under his feet. The 
last enemy that shall be abolished is death. 
* * And when all things have been subjected 
unto him, then shall the Son himself be subject 



STANDPOINT OF SCRIPTURE. 81 

unto Him that did put all things under him, that 
God may be all and in all/" i Cor. 13: 25-28. 
Every one shall finally be subject unto God as 
Christ is subject. 

This is the only rational issue of a universe that 
originated in love, and this is governed by love. 
The doctrine of endless sin and endless suffering 
is the doctrine of chance, or imbecility, or cruelty. 
It is the doctrine of a universe without a God, or 
a universe that is managed by an omnipotent 
devil! Take your choice — atheism or Satan! 
But if you believe in God, believe in a just and 
reasonable one. Lord Bacon well said : " It 
were better to have no opinion of God at all than 
such an opinion as is unworthy of him ; for the 
one is unbelief, the other is contumely ; and cer- 
tainly superstition is the reproach of the Deity." 
Plutarch saith well to that purpose, " Surely," 
saith he, " I had a great deal rather men should 
say there were no such man at all as Plutarch 
than they should say, 'There was one Plutarch 
that would eat his children as soon as they were 
born,' as the poets speak of Saturn ! And as the 
contumely is greater towards God, so is the 
danger greater towards men." 

The doctrine of endless sin and endless suffer- 
ing is a doctrine that blasphemes and slanders the 
Almighty. It virtually hurls him from his throne, 

and gives his scepter over to evil. It says that 
6 



82 JUSTICE AND MERCY. 

there is one foe in his dominions which he cannot 
conquer, Sin ! The doctrine of the final restitu- 
tion of all things says that he both can and will 
make an end of iniquity and of its terrible conse- 
quences. It makes him supreme. It declares 
that there is no foe which his love cannot con- 
quer. It declares that he shall have no rival to 
his throne and no rebels in his empire. No sin so 
black but he will wash it away ; no sinner so ob- 
durate but he shall be changed into a loyal and 
loving subject. No province of his kingdom so 
dark but it shall be flooded with the light of his 
countenance ; no prison of spirits chained and 
tortured* whose foundations shall not be razed, 
whose captives shall not be reformed and set free 
from the fetters of sin ; no dungeon of despair 
that shall not be turned into a palace of hope. 
No voice lifted in agony and cursing and terror 
from the bosom of the pit but shall finally take 
up the anthem of praise and keep time and tune 
with the angels that make melody before the 
throne of God ! 

This is my trust ! If I am wrong, I can only 
say with Whittier : 

" O brothers, if my faith be vain, 
If hopes like these betray, 
Pray for me, that my feet may find 
The safe and surer way. 

"And thou, Lord, by whom are seen 
Thy creatures as they be, 
Forgive me, if too close I lean 
My human heart on thee ! " 



v. 

UNIVERSAL RESTORATION THE EARLY FAITH 
OF THE CHURCH. 

[Sunday evening, November 9, 1890.] 

About three years ago while traveling from 
Grasmere to Keswick, in the lake region of Eng- 
land, the stage coach stopped for a few moments 
to water the horses, beside one of the tiniest 
churches we had ever seen. When we asked the 
coachman whether the little church was remarkable 
for anything, he replied, "No; but it's full of 
h'antiquity." That fact, in his mind, seemed 
quite enough to invest the insignificant structure 
with dignity and honor. It often happens in the 
history of human thought, that when an opinion 
begins to lose its position in the popular intelli- 
gence, those most interested in perpetuating it, 
cry out: "This is the ancient and unbroken faith 
of the church; why do you endeavor to remove 
the land-marks that our fathers have set?" The 
authority of antiquity is invoked to quell the 
insubordination of reason. Moth-eaten and 
mouldy volumes are exhumed from buried libra- 
ries to pile upon protesting heart-throbs. The 
ghosts of the dead are conjured up to frighten the 
living into submission. 



84 JUSTICE AND MERCY. 

This is the last resort of those who proclaim the 
doctrine I have for some Sunday evenings been 
controverting, — the doctrine of endless sin and 
suffering, the doctrine of unending and starless 
woe, the doctrine that man is a mistake and his 
Maker a fiend. This doctrine, I say, when other 
defences crumble, is supported by appeals to the 
past. Undeterred by the fact that "gray hairs 
cannot make folly venerable," the devotees of this 
supreme folly, this acme of superstition, point to 
its whitened locks, its tottering steps, its palsied 
hands, exclaiming with an accent intended to 
settle everything, "Prithee, look! lo, behold!" 
They turn to us and say, "You ought to be over- 
whelmed and silenced by the sight. You and 
your theories are but of yesterday. You are 
upstarts. You are mere adventurers. You have 
sprung up like the prophet's gourd, and will as 
suddenly wither." 

And yet we are not overwhelmed or silenced! 
I do not care for this appeal to the past, excepting 
as it raises a question of fact that ought, in the 
interests of truth, to be settled. For my own 
part, I should never accept a doctrine merely upon 
its genealogy. It would have to bring something 
more than a duplicate of parish records. It must 
address itself to my best judgment and to my 
conscience, — to those faculties God has given me 
for discerning between truth and falsehood. I 



EARLY FAITH OF THE CHURCH. 85 

am certain that this also is the feeling of most of 
those whom I address. The one great question 
evermore is this: Does your theory or creed com- 
mend itself to the enlightened intelligence and 
moral sentiment of to-day? 

But when the arrogant assertion is made that 
the creed of endless punishment dates from the 
dawn of Christianity, that it has been universally 
held by the church from the beginning, that its 
dominion has been complete and unquestioned; 
and that upon the other hand, the doctrine of the 
final restoration of the erring and sinful, the doc- 
trine that the last lost sheep will be found, and 
that the last prodigal will sometime come to him- 
self and find his way back to his Father's house, is 
a modern heresy, — when all this is asserted, and 
asserted as it so often is, in the most insolent and 
braggart manner, it may be. well to inquire upon 
what historic basis this monumental assumption 
rests. The appeal is made to history; to history 
let us go. 

Inasmuch as we had the New Testament under 
consideration last Sunday night, we shall begin 
to-night upon this side the apostolic line. 

I am now about to make a statement that may 
startle at first even those who are best prepared to 
receive it. It is this: Among the immediate suc- 
cessors of the apostolic Christians, the views which 
are to-day stamped as heresy by orthodoxy, were 



86 JUSTICE AND MERCY. 

commonly held; great leaders of the church, such 
as Clement of Alexandria and Origen "maintained 
by specific arguments that love must triumph in 
the ultimate recovery of every soul;" the schools 
of Christian learning, with one or two exceptions, 
were committed to the advocacy of this doctrine; 
this idea prevailed and dominated the thought of 
Christendom until the scepter of authority passed 
from the Eastern to the Western division of the 
church. 

Upon the other hand, I affirm that the doctrine 
of endless punishment "was not generally held 
among Christians until the beginning of the sixth 
century, when the Romish hierarchy became 
powerful, and the Emperor Justinian, by royal 
anathema, placed the doctrine of universal salva- 
tion under ban." 

I make these statements understanding perfectly 
the responsibility involved. I make them in the 
full confidence that they will be vindicated before 
the tribunal of history. 

For the present, I place behind my statements 
the words of Archdeacon Farrar, "The more I 
look into the history and writings of those times, 
the more firmly convinced I am that Neanderwas 
right in saying that the doctrine of the final res- 
titution, taken alone, never was regarded as heret- 
ical, or as untenable within the limits of the faith, 
until the furious attack upon Origen two centuries 



EARLY FAITH OF THE CHURCH. S7 

after his death, led men to mix up this opinion, — 
which I still believe and maintain was never con- 
demned by any general council — with others of 
his opinions which were so condemned. Such is 
the opinion of Neander. And in spite of the 
asserted unanimity of the church on the subject, I 
have shown (i) that the views of Origen were 
held by large multitudes both in the east and in 
the west; (2) that they were defended by church 
fathers of the most splendid reputation without 
any injury to their canonization or their character 
for orthodxy; (3) that they found champions in 
some of the deepest thinkers and ablest writers of 
the three greatest theological schools — the school 
of Alexandria, the school of Antioch, and the 
school of Cappadocia." — Mercy and Judgment, p. 

2JI. 

I also record the saying of Doderlin: "In Chris- 
tian antiquity, the more eminent and learned a 
man was, in that proportion did he cherish and 
defend the hope that torments would at some 
time end." 

Leaving these general affirmations, let us now 
proceed with the evidence more in detail. Let us 
see whether we shall be able to justify the decla- 
rations with which we started. 

I. For a century or more after the death 
of Jesus, no elaborate attempt was made to 
formulate a system of theology. 



88 JUSTICE AND MERCY. 

I said last Sunday evening that the New Testa- 
ment itself did not contain a body of formal 
divinity. It is the book of life, the book of 
principles, the book of religious forces. These 
principles and forces were active among the first 
Christians before the New Testament had been 
compiled. The book itself was the outgrowth of 
the new life, the life was not the outgrowth of the 
book. The new religion made the new literature, 
not the literature the religion; just as the spirit of 
God was back of the universe and made it, not the 
outgrowth of the universe; just as the thought of 
man is behind his monument or temple, not the 
monument or temple behind the thought. Life 
always precedes expression. The new experi- 
ences wrought by the truths Jesus taught, and by 
the inspiration of his own example, were so exul- 
tant and happy that the early Christians were 
content with the facts, and did not seek to explain 
them. It was enough that they had been redeemed 
from the bondage of sin, reconciled to God, turned 
from hatred to love, and filled with the hope of 
immortality! 

But so far as they did embody their feelings 
and hopes in word or symbol, we find those words 
and symbols on the walls of the Catacombs where 
they were wont to lay their dead. In these cham- 
bers of gloom which were made bright with signs 
of peace and trust, we find the ideas they most 



EARLY FAITH OF THE CHURCH. 89 

commonly cherished, and the beginnings of 
Christian Art. These subterranean cells were for 
centuries the burial places of Christian dead. 
What story do they tell? What ideals do we 
find inscribed? Is there anything that even re- 
motely hints the later creeds of darkness and 
wrath ? 

Let us take the authority of Dean Stanley. He 
says that 'when we proceed to the beliefs them- 
selves as presented in the pictures or inscriptions 
confining ourselves as much as possible to those 
which are earliest and most universal, they do not 
coincide with the theology and art of the modern 
Western Church, but with those of the Eastern.' 
The Eastern theology was shaped by Clement and 
Origen, as we shall see, and was the theology of 
hope, of joy, of final victory, while the Western 
theology was given its final form by Augustine 
and was the theology of despair and defeat, of sin 
and suffering permanent in the universe, and 
Heaven helpless or unwilling to have it otherwise. 
And Dean Stanley tells us that the ideas inscribed 
by sign or word or picture upon the catacombs, 
and especially the earliest of these, were in har- 
mony with the doctrines of Clement and Origen, 
and not in harmony with the later doctrines of 
Augustine. 

In two ways the breadth of thought and of 
sympathy which characterized those Christians 



90 JUSTICE AND MERCY. 

who were nearest in time to their Great Master, 
may be shown: — 

(i.) "It is astonishing," says Dean Stanley, 
"how many of these decorations are taken from 
heathen sources and copied from heathen paint- 
ings. There is Orpheus playing on his harp to 
the beasts; there is Bacchus as the god of the 
vintage; there is Psyche, the butterfly of the soul; 
there is the Jordan as the god of the river. The 
classical and the Christian, the Hebrew and the 
Hellenic elements had not yet parted. The strict 
demarkation which the books of the period would 
imply between the Christian church and the hea- 
then world had not yet been formed or was con- 
stantly effaced. The catacombs have more affinity 
with the chapel of Alexander Severus, which 
contained Orpheus side by side with Abraham and 
Christ, than they have with the writings of Tertul- 
lian who spoke of heathen poets only to exult in 
their future torments, or of Augustine who 
regarded this very figure of Orpheus only as a 
mischievous teacher to be disparaged, not as a 
type of the union of two forms of heathen and 
Christian civilization." 

The early Christians were willing to concede 
that in the ideas and symbols of their heathen 
friends and neighbors, was much of truth and 
beauty. This they accepted, and gave in return 
the lessons they themselves had learned in the 



EARLY FAITH OF THE CHURCH. 91 

school of Christ. They recognized whatever of 
value their neighbors had, and did not tear their 
hair and shriek in frenzy when they found a 
heathen who had common sense and common 
morality. They rejoiced over such discovery. 
They did not feel that God had defrauded them 
out of what he had graciously bestowed upon 
another. They felt that he was the God of other 
people as well as of themselves; that Greek and 
Roman, as well as Jew and Christian, were his 
children. Nor did these early Christians at first 
try to terrify their heathen fellow citizens into the 
fold by threats of endless torment. If this gentler 
policy could have been longer pursued, it would 
have averted many of those sharp collisions 
between heathen and Christian, which sent thou- 
sands of Christians to the stake and the lions. 
When the Christian began to threaten the Pagan 
with undying flames in the next world, the Pagan 
retorted by kindling the fires for the Christian in 
this world. The Pagan argued that if he had to 
stand it forever and ever in the next world, it was 
no more than fair that the Christian should stand 
it for a few moments in this world. I do not say 
that the Pagan was right, but we can at least 
understand his feelings. 

Prof. Allen says: "When Christian apologists 
like Tertullian were proclaiming to their heathen 
brethren a day of final judgment in which they 



92 JUSTICE AND MERCY. 

were to receive the never-ending penalty of their 
madness, we may admire the boldness which their 
speech betrays, but we can no longer wonder at 
the growing indignation which was soon to culmi- 
nate in the Decian persecution, in one supreme 
effort to root up and exterminate the Christian 
church." — Conti?inity of Christian Thought, page 



12 



J 



The writer of these words is professor of church 
history in the Episcopal Divinity School at Cam- 
bridge. 

It is no wonder that the Roman people and 
rulers tried to uproot a system that launched such 
remorseless anathemas upon them, — that gave 
them only the alternative, "Believe as we do, or 
be irrevocably damned." It was not in human 
nature to do other than resist, and they resisted 
by the rude methods with which they were most 
familiar. It is no wonder, I say, that they tried 
to uproot such a system. The pity of it is that 
they did not succeed in uprooting, in the earliest 
stages of its growth, the frightful notion that 
made all the trouble and that was no part of 
Christianity, before it sprang up into the deadly 
Upas of after ages, in whose blighting shadow the 
face of Joy grew white with fear, in whose 
poisonous atmosphere Hope, the lovliest child of 
Paradise, fell dead ! Pity it is that this plant, 
which our Heavenly Father did not plant, could 



EARLY FAITH OF TUB CHURCH. 93 

not have been rooted out of the garden of God — 
even by the iron hand of Rome ! 

(2.) But we must return to the Catacombs. 
The most characteristic, as well as the earliest, 
picture upon those walls is the figure of the Good 
Shepherd. 

" It represents to us," says Dean Stanley, " an 
aspect of the only Christian belief that has not 
been common in later times, but of which we 
find occasional traces even in the writings of 
these earlier centuries, namely that the first 
object of the Christian community was not to 
repel, but to include ; not to condemn, but save. 
In some of the paintings of the Good Shepherd, 
this aspect of the subject is emphasized by repre- 
senting the creature on his shoulder to be not a 
lamb, but a kid ; not a sheep, but a goat. It is 
this which provokes the indignant remonstrance 
of Tertullian, in the only passage of that father 
which contains a distinct reference to the popular 
representation of the Good Shepherd ; and it is 
on this unchristian protest that Matthew Arnold 
founds one of his most touching poems: 

"He saves the sheep— the goats he doth not save; 
So spake the fierce Tertullian — 

But she sighed,— 
The Infant Church ! of love she felt the tide 
Stream on her from her Lord's yet recent grave, 
And then she smiled, and in the Catacombs, 
With eye suffused, but heart inspired true, 
She her Good Shepherd's hasty image drew, 
And on his shoulder not a lamb, but kid." 



94 JUSTICE AND MERCY. 

Those who felt that tide of love stream on them 
from their Lord's yet recent grave, — who felt it so 
strongly that they could picture him bearing upon 
his shoulders a goat or a kid as well as a lamb, 
could not believe, did not believe that he ever 
meant to make an endless separation between the 
goats and the sheep! 

"What, then," asks the Dean, "was the popular 
religion of the first Christians? It was, in one 
word, the religion of the Good Shepherd. The 
kindness, the courage, the grace, the love, the 
beauty of the Good Shepherd was to them, if we 
may so say, prayer-book and articles, creed and 
canons, all in one. They looked on that figure, it 
conveyed to them all that they wanted. As ages 
passed on, the Good Shepherd faded away from 
the mind of the Christian world, and other 
emblems of the Christian faith have taken its 
place. Instead of the gracious and gentle pastor, 
there came the omnipotent judge, or the crucified 
sufferer, or the infant in his mother's arms, or the 
master in his parting supper, or the figures of 
innumerable saints and angels, or the elaborate 
expositions of the various forms of theological 
controversy." — Christian Institutions, p. 2j$. 

This was the unformulated faith of the early 
Christians, of those so close to the time of the 
Master that they could almost feel the pulsations 
of that mighty heart that yearned over Jerusalem, 



EARLY FAITH OF THE CHURCH. 95 

that made him go forth to seek and to save that 
which was lost. These Christians were distin- 
guished by charity for their heathen neighbors, 
and by a faith in their own Good Shepherd, so 
strong, so brave, and so comprehensive, that they 
dared to complete the parable he himself had 
spoken, by picturing him in the act of bringing 
back from the disciplinary punishment into whicli 
they had been driven the very goats and kids that 
had stood upon his left hand in the judgment! 

II. But the human mind seeks to reduce 

ITS FAITHS TO SYSTEM. It WANTS, AT LAST, 

DEFINITE AND FORMULATED STATEMENTS. THIS 
NEED BEGAN TO BE DISTINCTLY FELT TOWARDS 
THE END OF THE SECOND CENTURY. 

We have considered the popular belief as it 
expressed itself in symbols on the walls of the 
Catacombs. Let us now proceed to the schools. 
Let us find out who first undertook to organize 
the faith, and with what result. Let us inquire 
whether the labors of scholars harmonized with 
the spontaneous sentiments of the people. Did 
the decisions of culture support the joy and hope, 
the anticipations of victory final and complete 
over evil, that the voice of religion had whispered 
to the soul? 

The attempt to reduce Christianity to a system 
was first made at Alexandria. The Church in this 
beautiful and famous city, the intellectual center 



96 JUSTICE AND MERCY. 

of the world, had founded a school "adorned with 
the fairest names of Christendom." Here began 
the work of giving to the new religion a sound, 
philosophic expression, that should satisfy the 
demands of reason as well as of faith. In the 
school of Alexandria was wrought out a system 
of theology, — not without its faults, indeed, but 
so just and so reasonable that back to its central 
principles the thought of the world, so long under 
bondage to the gross tenets of Augustine, is 
turning to-day. I have no time, nor is this the 
place, to describe it in detail, for I am seeking its 
verdict upon a single point. I am seeking to find 
what was held, in this first Christian school, upon 
the question of human destiny. 

I turn to Giesler, the Church historian, and I 
read this general description: "The Alexandrians 
set the retributive justice of God in closest con- 
nection with his love and goodness. Even 
punishments, so they taught, are a proof of the 
goodness of God, designed partly to improve the 
sinner himself, partly to intimidate others from 
sin, partly to protect the injured. But Clement 
and Origen especially dwell upon the improvement 
of the sinner as the end of the Divine punishments. 
Clement says, as children by their teacher or 
father, so are we chastened by Providence. A 
revengeful punishment, a retaliation of evil, God 
knows not. Origen compares God with a physi- 



EARLY FAITH OF THE CHURCH. 97 

cian who applies not only mild but, against 
confirmed diseases, also severe remedies." — 
History of Doctrines. 

It was under Clement and his great pupil and 
successor, Origen, that the Alexandrian school 
reached its full development. The writings of 
these fathers are extant, and we may go directly 
to them; for what they believed, in the main, the 
Church believed, during this period of Christian 
history. 

Let us read from Clement (190 A. D. — 203 
connection with school): 

"God works all things up to what is better." * 
* * "If in this life there are so many ways for 
purification and repentance, how much more 
should there be after death. The purification of 
souls when separated from the body will be easier. 
We can set no limits to the agency of the 
Redeemer; to redeem, to rescue, to discipline, is 
his work, and so will he continue to operate after 
this life." 

"How is he a Saviour and Lord, unless he is the 
Saviour and Lord of us all? He is certainly the 
Saviour of those who have believed; and of those 
who have not believed he is the Lord, until, by 
being brought to confess him, they shall receive 
the proper and well-adapted blessing for them- 
selves." 

These extracts might be multiplied; but time 
7 



98 JUSTICE AND MERCY. 

will not permit, nor is it necessary. They show 
that this first great father of the Church, whose 
influence in his own day was vast — almost un- 
bounded — when he undertook to formulate the 
Christian faith, put into his system the doctrine of 
penalty for discipline, for regeneration, for refor- 
mation; he saw, beyond the gloomy walls of the 
prison, the liberated captive restored to his lost 
manhood; beyond the fires of cleansing, the gold 
of character, freed from its old dross and refined, 
shining with its original lustre, in the light that 
falls from the face of God! 

Let us now turn to Origpn (186 A. D. — 254), 
whose influence was even greater in the early 
Church than that of his master and teacher: 

"As therefore God is a consuming fire, what is 
it that is to be consumed by him? We say it is 
wickedness and whatever proceeds from it, such 
as is figuratively called wood, hay, stubble. These 
are what God in the character of fire comsumes. 
And as it is evidently the wicked works of man 
that are denoted by the terms wood, hay, stubble, 
it is consequently easy to understand what is the 
nature of that fire by which they are to be con- 
sumed. * * He shall come also as a refiner's 
fire to purify rational nature from the alloy of 
wickedness. * *' ! Rivers of fire are likewise 
said to go forth before the face of God for the 
purpose of consuming whatever of evil is admixed 
in all the soul." 



EARLY FAITH OF THE CHURCH. 99 

"We assert that the Word, who is the wisdom 
of God, shall bring together all intelligent crea- 
tures, and convert them into his own perfection, 
through the instrumentalities of their free-will 
and their own exertions. And the consummation 
of all things will be the extinction of sin." 

I admit that Origen held many fanciful and 
even grotesque notions; I admit that he did not 
trust his own doctrine of final restitution as far as 
he ought, for, while he argued that the doctrine 
was true, he was so fearful that it might be abused 
that he thought some people needed to have the 
opposite view preached to them in order to 
restrain them from sin; nevertheless, he stood for 
the truth itself, and his conclusions moulded the 
thought of multitudes. Says Prof. Harnack, "By 
proclaiming the reconciliation of Science with the 
Christian faith, of the highest culture with the 
gospel, Origen did more than any other man to 
win the Old World to the Christian religion." 

Of Origen and his great influence, let Dr. 
Edward Beecher speak: — 

"Two great facts stand out on the page of 
ecclesiastical history. One that the first system 
of Christian theology was composed and issued 
by Origen in the year 230 after Christ, of which a 
fundamental and essential element was the doc- 
trine of the universal restoration of all fallen 
beings to their original happiness and union with 



100 JUSTICE AND MERCY. 

God. The second is that after the lapse of a little 
more than three centuries, in the year 544, this 
doctrine was for the first time condemned and 
anathematized as heretical. This was done, not 
in the general council, but in a local council called 
by the patriarch Mennas, at Constantinople, by 
the order of Justinian. During all this long 
interval, the opinions of Origen and of his various 
writings were an element of power in the whole 
Christian world. For a long time he stood high 
as the greatest luminary of the Christian world. 
He gave an impulse to the leading spirits of sub- 
sequent ages, and was honored by them as their 
greatest benefactor. At last, after all his scholars 
were dead, in the remote age of Justinian, he was 
anathematized as a heretic of the worst kind. 
* * # From and after this point, the doctrine 
of future eternal punishment reigned with undis- 
puted sway during the middle ages that preceded 
the Reformation. What, then, was the state of 
facts in the leading theological schools of the 
Christian world, in the age of Origen and some 
centuries after? It was in brief this: There were 
at least six theological schools in the church at 
large. Of these six schools, one and only one 
was decidedly and earnestly in favor of the 
doctrine of future eternal punishment. One was 
in favor of the annihilation of the wicked. Two 
were in favor of the doctrine of universal restora- 



EARLY FAITH OF THE CHURCH. 101 

tion on the principles of Origen, and two in favor 
of universal restoration on the principles of 
Theodore of Mopsuestia. * * * It is also 
true that the arguments by which they defended 
their views were never fairly stated and answered. 
Indeed, they were never stated at all. They may 
admit of a thorough answer and refutation, but 
even if so they were not condemned and anathe- 
matized on any such grounds, but simply in 
obedience to the arbitrary mandates of Justinian, 
whose final arguments were deposition and banish- 
ment for those who refused to do his will." — His- 
tory of Future Retribution, pp. 176-189. 

III. — Let us now sum up the results of our 

INVESTIGATION. LET US SEE WHAT POINTS WE 
HAVE ESTABLISHED, UPON THE TESTIMONY OF 
SCHOLARS WHO ARE BRIGHT AND SHINING LIGHTS 
IN ORTHODOX COMMUNIONS. 

I have not quoted from a single one who will 
allow himself to be called a Universalist. 

I. — We find regarding the rank and file of the 
Church that the central idea of their simple faith 
was the Good Shepherd who saved the goats as well 
as the sheep. 

2. — We find regarding the great leaders and 
thinkers: 

(1.) That it was the Alexandrian fathers who 
gave the world the first formal and systematic 
statement of Christian truth, and that an esse?itial 



102 JUSTICE AND MERCY. 

part of this system was the doctrine of final restitu- 
tion. 

(2.) We find that this doctrine was never 
regarded as heretical, was never looked upon as 
a departure from the faith once delivered to the 
saints, until the middle of the sixth century \ by a 
council called at Constantinople. 

(3.) We find that this council was not a general 
council of the Church, but one called from a small 
territory, and backed by the order of a despotic 
emperor in the interests of a bigoted prelate. 

(4.) We find, too, that it was not declared a 
heresy because its arguments were fairly stated, 
met and refuted; it was condemned and its advo- 
cates cursed, in obedience to the arbitrary will of the 
Roma?i Emperor. 

(5.) We find that at this council the opposite 
doctrine of endless punishment was first ptiblicly 
recognized and adopted as a part of the creed of the 
Church, although before this it had been more or 
less held by individuals. 

It is noticeable, too, that this was just the time 
when the church was about to take that awful 
plunge into what, by common consent, has been 
called the dark ages. 

I had thought to have treated this part of the 
subject also, this evening, but I found that the 
undertaking would be too great. Next Sunday 
evening, I shall trace the origin and growth of 



EARLY FAITH OF THE CHURCH. 103 

the dark doctrine that eventually displaced the 
bright and hopeful creed of the earliest Christian 
centuries, 

3. — We find regarding the great schools of 
Christendom — 

One was located at Ephesus and taught annihi- 
lation ; one at Carthage in north Africa and 
taught endless punishment ;* the other four at' 
Alexandria, Caeserea, Antioch and Edessa, taught 
universal restoration ! 

These are the plain and unadorned facts of 
history. If the argument from antiquity is worth 
anything, it belongs to the immortal hope, and 
not to the endless despair ! 

The doctrine of endless punishment is old, but 
it is not the oldest. Beyond the clouds that set- 
tled upon the world when the dark ages began, 
there is a realm of joy and sunshine. The nearer 
you come to the time when the Sun of righteous- 
ness arose with healing in his wings, the more 
you find of love to man, the more inspiring the 
outlook upon his destiny. The early Christians 
lived in an age before the echoes of the Master's 
words, his parables about the lost and their 
recovery, his teachings of the Father, his prayer 
upon the cross, had died away in the din of 
wrangling councils, the fierce contests of ambi- 
tious prelates and the howls of persecuting 

* Dr. Beecher afterwards explains that all the theological schools of 
the early church were Universalist. Those teaching annihilation and 
endless punishment were schools of thought— not institutions. Those 
at Alexandria, Cesarea, Antioch and Edessa were all schools, and they 
were Universalist. 



104 JUSTICE AND MERCY. 

fanatics ! They can better express his spirit than 
the great rulers of the church into whom entered 
the disposition of the old Roman conquerers, 
than the priests of the church into whom entered 
the disposition of the Roman augurs and sooth- 
sayers ! 

The doctrine of endless punishment is old, but 
it is not permanent. It was no part of the faith 
of the early church, it will be no part of the faith 
of the church triumphant. It holds its place 
to-day by custom and tradition, not by reason. 
It is a part of the theology which the Western 
world received from Augustine, — a theology that 
is as alien to the teachings and character of Jesus 
Christ, as the hell which it supports and cherishes 
is to the heaven for which we hope! Born in 
superstition, reared in darkness, supported by 
tradition, this cruel and blighting doctrine of 
woe, shall yet die by the hand of enlightened 
faith and reverent reason ! And when the earth 
is cleared from the incubus of its oppressive and 
desolating presence, then will the children of men 
sing with gladness, "Hallelujah, the Lord God 
Omnipotent reigneth ! " 



VI. 

RISE AND GROWTH OF THE DOCTRINE OF 
ENDLESS PUNISHMENT. 

[Sunday Evening, Nov. 16, 1890.] 

Last Sunday evening we found from testimony 
that cannot be gainsaid, that the early belief of the 
Church was that of ultimate restoration to right- 
eousness of all souls that have wandered from 
God. The faith of the early Christians as re- 
corded upon the walls of the Roman Catacombs, 
was a faith in the Good Shepherd who would at 
last save the goats as well as the sheep. The doc- 
trine, as held by the great leaders of the Church 
and taught in the schools of Christian learning, 
up to the middle of the sixth century, was the 
restitution of all things. But at the council of 
Constantinople, the theology of Origen was con- 
demned, and the theology of Augustine thence- 
forth reigned with undisputed sway. 

If, therefore, the- argument from antiquity 
counts, it belongs, not to the oracles of despair, 
but to the prophets of hope; not to those who 
blot out the stars shining through the cypress 
trees, but to those who fling across the dark abyss 
of the future the rainbow of God's unchanging 
love ! 



106 JUSTICE AND MERCY. 

This evening we are to inquire where the doc- 
trine of Endless Punishment took its rise in the 
Christian Church; by what agencies it was propa- 
gated; and what were its effects upon mankind. 
I am not to inquire how the idea first entered the 
human mind; but where it first entered Christian 
history. 

I forewarn you that there will be very little 
original matter in this discourse. I do not feel at 
liberty to manufacture history, so the largest part 
of my work this evening will be reading from au- 
thorities. 

I. What was the origin of the doctrine of End- 
less Punishment? Where and when was the 
stream of Christian history first tainted by its de- 
filement? 

Although it did not become widely prevalent 
for several centuries it was held by some almost 
from the beginning of the period succeeding the 
apostles. It first appears distinctly and unmis- 
takably in the writings of Tertullian of Car- 
thage, whose term of active theological life ex- 
tended from the year 190 A. D. to the year 
220 A. D. The foundations of the entire system 
which afterwards became the creed of the Western 
Church, were laid by Tertullian. One of the 
stones in this foundation was the doctrine of End- 
less Punishment. 

Farrar says: "The first indisputable trace of 



ENDLESS PUNISHMENT. 107 

this view occurs in the fierce pages of the Monta- 
nist Tertullian, whose devoutly ferocious disposi- 
tion offered a fitting engine for its propagation." 
— Mercy and Judgment, p. 23. 

Thayer says: "He is the first, as far as can be 
ascertained, who expressly affirmed, and argued 
the question, that the torments of the damned 
would be equal in duration to the happiness of 
the blessed." — Origin and History of the Doctrine. 

The spirit of this man may be learned from a 
page of his own writings upon this subject: "You 
are fond of your spectacles," he says to the Pagans, 
"but there are other spectacles; that day disbe- 
lieved, derided by the nations, the last and eternal 
day of judgment, when all ages shall be swallowed 
up in one conflagration; what a variety of specta- 
cles shall then appear! How shall I admire, how 
laugh, how rejoice, how exult, when I behold so 
many kings and false gods, together with Jove him- 
self, groaning in the lowest abyss of darkness! — so 
many magistrates who persecuted the name of the 
Lord, liquefying in fiercer flames than they ever 
kindled against Christians; so many sage philoso- 
phers blushing in raging" fire, with their scholars 
whom they persuaded to despise God, and to dis- 
believe the resurrection, and so many poets shud- 
dering before the tribunal, not of Rhadamanthus, 
not of Minos, but of the disbelieved Christ? 
Then shall we hear tragedians more tuneful in the 



108 JUSTICE AND MERCY. 

expression of their own sufferings; then shall we 
see the dancers far more sprightly amidst the 
flames; the charioteer all red-hot in his burning 
car; and the wrestlers hurled, not upon the accus- 
tomed list, but upon a plain of fire. There are 
sights which no quaestor or priest can now procure 
a Roman audience the pleasure of beholding, but 
the Christian can even now by faith behold these 
things in pictures of the imagination." — De Spec, 
p. 30. 

Tertullian would have added materially to the 
applause with which Joseph Cook's lecture on 
endless sin and suffering was greeted in Boston. 
Nothing can better show the petrifying effect of 
this doctrine upon the human heart than such pas- 
sages as the one just given. Guizot, indeed, tries 
to mitigate the offense of Tertullian against the 
moral feelings of humanity, but Milman frankly 
owns that "it would be wiser for Christianity, re- 
treating upon its genuine records in the New 
Testament, to disclaim this fierce African, than to 
identify itself with his furious invectives, by un- 
satisfactory apologies for their unchristian fanati- 
cism." These are the earliest traces of this hide- 
ous doctrine. Tertullian enjoyed the unenviable 
notoriety of introducing into the thought of 
Christendom the dogma which has ever since been 
the disgrace of theology and the stumbling-block 
of thousands of honest souls. Bear it in mind, 



ENDLESS PUNISHMENT. 109 

and never forget, that it was Tertullian and not 
Jesus who lighted the fires of the hell that the 
Church has preached for centuries. It was the 
furious and vengeful African and not the gentle 
Nazarene who invented the creed of terror and 
despair. 

II. What were the circumstances in which this 
doctrine took its rise? What were the conditions 
that made it possible? 

We note, first of all a growing exclusiveness on 
the part of the Church. It did not take long for the 
early Christians to depart from the spirit of their 
Great Master. The lesson he had taught his first 
disciples, not to forbid any one from doing good 
and casting out devils, whether he followed with 
them or not, soon faded away. It did not take 
very long to shape the dogma of the visible Church 
so stringently, that only in it, as in the ark of 
Noah, did the Christians see help and salvation; 
outside of it was certain destruction. Thus they 
came to regard themselves as the special favorites 
of heaven, and to look with intolerance and scorn 
upon their neighbors. They began to feel that 
they themselves were safe, and thus could view 
with infinite composure the fate of others. 

Next a feeling of retaliation for the opprobrium 
heaped upon them by their heathen fellow-citizens. 
"The belief in a millennial kingdom soon to be 
established grew weak in the second century, and 



110 JUSTICE AND MERCY, 

in the third may be said to have disappeared. But 
the vision of a lake that burned with endless fires 
for the enemies of Christ, the tortures in reserve 
for those who persecuted his faithful followers, 
still appealed to a Church that existed in the face 
of a perpetual hatred and scorn on the part of the 
heathens. It was impossible that recriminations 
should not be heard from heathens and Christians 
alike. The latter told their adversaries of a day 
of judgment, when the punishment which had 
been withheld in this world, should fall upon them 
in awful severity, — when the final sentence should 
be pronounced which remanded them to. the tor- 
tures of endless suffering." — Allen, Continuity of 
Christian Thought, p. 122. 

Instead of blessing those who cursed them, do- 
ing good to those who hated them, praying for 
those who despitefully used and persecuted them, 
these Christians of Tertullian's time said: "If we 
cannot ourselves take vengeance upon you in this 
world, God will make you smart in the next." 

Still further, degrading views of God. Such 
writers as Tertullian looked upon God as a mag- 
nified man, with human passions, with the human 
thirst for revenge, with human methods of thought 
and action. They were not much in advance of 
the pagans themselves. They had, it is true, only 
one God, while the pagans had many, but thev 
made their one about as bad as all the pagan gods 



ENDLESS PUNISHMENT, 111 

put together. Indeed Tertullian believed that 
God existed in bodily form: "Whatever is, is a 
body; nothing is incorporeal but what is not, 
therefore God is a body, although he is also a 
spirit; for a spirit is a body of its own kind in a 
peculiar form." Tertullian also insists upon the 
human passions in God: "As we dwell upon the 
goodness of God, so his hatred and his anger 
should also be recognized against all that oppose 
his will." 

Certain plagues and calamities that about this 
time fell upon the people were interpreted as di- 
vine judgments upon the heathen. It is only one 
step from a God who deals capriciously or re- 
vengefully in this world to a God who deals ca- 
priciously or revengefully in the next. Alger says: 
"The calamities of this life were regarded as 
tokens, revengeful or loving, of the ruling deities, 
now pleased, now enraged. And when their vota- 
ries or victims had passed into the eternal state, 
how natural to suppose them still favored or 
cursed by the passionate wiles of these irrespon- 
sible gods." — Hist. Doct. of Fut. Life. 

Under these conditions, so far as the early 
Christian Church is concerned, grew up the doc- 
trine that first took definite shape in the writings 
of Tertullian. It was introduced through bigotry, 
vengeance and superstition. 

Ill, Let us now take another step. In the year 



112 JUSTICE AND MERCY, 

252 A. D. we come to the period of Cyprian's 
greatest activity. 

-The exclusiveness of which I spoke a moment 
ago, was still farther developed by Cyprian. Un- 
der his teaching the doctrine of the Church as- 
sumed greater rigidity and severity. Dean Mil- 
man says: 

"Cyprian held that within the pale of the 
Church, under the law of the bishop, were Christ 
and salvation; without it the realm of the devil 
and the world of perdition. The faith of the here- 
tic and schismatic was no faith, his holiness no ho- 
liness, his martyrdom no martyrdom." — Hist of 
Lat. Chris. , 1 : 87. 

The spirit of Cyprian was transmitted to later 
times. If a man orthodox was burned at the 
stake, he was a martyr; if heretic, he was simply 
a man burned — that was all. 

The stress that Cyprian laid upon the visible 
Church as a means — as the only means — of salva- 
tion, may be learned from his address to Deme- 
trius: "The world is nearing its end and the 
coming of anti-Christ is at hand. The earth has 
grown old and exhausted, life is failing at its 
sources, the sun is losing its heat, the rain dimin- 
ishes, the harvests grow thin, the disemboweled 
mountains no longer yield the precious ores, 
young men are born prematurely old, — every- 
where are the signs of decay and approaching 



ENDLESS PUNISHMENT. 113 

dissolution. Meantime the Church remains as an 
ark of deliverance from the wrath of God. The 
Christians may seem to share with their neighbors 
in the troubles of the time, but they who have a 
confidence in the good things that a future life 
will bring, do not in reality suffer from the assault 
of present evils. To the pagans the Church offers 
a refuge if they will turn to it. But the opportu- 
nity is brief; the end is near; after this world is 
over there is no hope, no possibility of repentance. 
The pain of punishment will then be without the 
fruit of repentance, tears and prayers will be of no 
avail. Here life is either saved or lost. So long 
as one remains in this world no repentance is too 
late. Death constitutes the line between hope 
and despair; it puts an end to human probation. 
Hereafter a punishment devouring with living 
flames, will burn up the condemned in an ever- 
burning Gehenna; to their agonies will be neither 
end or respite. Souls with their bodies will be 
reserved in infinite tortures for suffering." — Ad. 
Demetrianum, pp. 23-5. 

Thus hand in hand went the exclusiveness of 
the Church in this world and the doctrine of un- 
ending retribution in the next. Bigotry here and 
hell hereafter were inseparable companions. 

IV. Let us now come down to the time of 
Augustine, who was born in the year 354 A. D. 
His conversion to Christianity, under Ambrose at 



114 JUSTICE AND MERCY, 

Milan, was one of the most momentous events in 
the history of the Western Church. A man of 
powerful intellect, he put into system the ideas of 
Tertullian, stamped upon them the impress of his 
own thought, and shaped the theology of the West 
for more than a thousand years. He embodied 
the doctrines of Tertullian in the Church of 
Cyprian. The Church was the only agency 
through which the divine influence was mani- 
fested, and without this influence no one could be 
saved. 

"The Church was the predestined assemblage 
of those to whom, and to whom alone, salvation 
was possible; the Church scrupled not to surren- 
der the rest of mankind to that inexorable dam- 
nation entailed upon the human race by the sin of 
their first parents. As the Church, by the jealous 
exclusion of all heretics, drew around itself a nar- 
rower circle; this startling limitation of the divine 
mercies was compensated by the great extension 
of its borders, which now comprehended all other 
baptized Christians. The only point in this theory 
at which human nature uttered a feeble remon- 
strance was the abandonment of infants who 
never knew the distinction between good and evil, 
to eternal fires. The heart of Augustine wrung 
from his reluctant reason, which trembled at its 
own inconsistency, a milder damnation in their 
favor. But some of his more remorseless disciples 



ENDLESS PUNISHMENT. 115 

disclaimed the illogical softness of their Master." 
— Milman, Lat. Chris. , 1:171. 

In regard to the special doctrine whose history 
we are tracing, Gieseler says: "In the West it was 
Augustine who rigorously contested the opinion 
of the termination of hell-torments, and set upon 
it the stamp of heresy." 

Allen says: "The doctrine of endless punish- 
ment assumed in the writings of Augustine a 
prominence and rigidity which had no parallel in 
the earlier history of theology, which had no war- 
rant in the New Testament, and which savors of 
the teaching of Mohammed more than of Christ. 
Hitherto even in the West, it had been an open 
question whether the punishment hereafter of sin 
unrepented of and not forsaken was to be endless. 
Augustine himself has left on record the fact that 
some, very many indeed, still fell back on the 
mercy and love of God, as a ground of hope for 
the ultimate restoration of humanity. He rallies 
those tender-hearted Christians who cannot ac- 
cept the doctrine of endless torment." — Continuity 
of Chris. Thought, pp. 164-5. 

The theology of the West, whose foundations 
were laid by Tertullian, upon whose structure 
Cyprian wrought, was completed by Augustine. 
It gradually displaced the milder views of Clem- 
ent and Origen, until at last Origen was condemned 
as a heretic in the middle of the sixth century, 



116 JUSTICE AND MERCY. 

and Augustinianism, with its exclusive Church, its 
despotic God, and its endless fires reigned su- 
preme. 

V. We are now upon the verge of that period 
of history known as the Dark Ages. Let us fol- 
low the doctrine of Endless Punishment into this 
period. 

Of this period it has been well said: "Few men 
who are not either priests or monks would not 
have preferred to live in the best days of the 
Athenian or of the Roman republics, in the age of 
Augustus or in the age of the Antonines, rather 
than in any period that elapsed between the tri- 
umph of Christianity and the fourteenth century." 
No wonder that such a doctrine flourished during 
such an age. 

The Northern Barbarians had conquered the 
Roman State, the Church had now to conquer the 
Barbarians. By this time the Church had devel- 
oped. Its organization was perfected. Its ma- 
chinery was complete. But it retained the spirit 
of Imperial Rome, and the aims of Imperial 
Rome. Its purpose was a world-wide external 
conquest. The founder of the Church had said 
that the Kingdom of God was within; the rulers 
of the Church at Rome said that the Kingdom of 
God was outward and visible. Territorial exten- 
sion was the great object. 



ENDLESS P UNISHMENT. 117 

By what agencies was this object accom- 
plished? 

By keeping the people they sought to influence 
in ig?iora?ice. One of the Gregories declared that 
"ignorance was the mother of devotion.' 1 The 
price of heaven was intellectual stupor. 

By materializing religion, — by making worship 
as sensuous as possible, — by addressing the eye 
rather than the understanding or heart. 

By the use of fear. They made the interdict, 
excommunication, and the flames of hell their 
instrumentalities. Allen says: "The doctrine of 
an endless punishment for all who rejected the 
claims of Christ must have been from an early 
period the underlying belief which gave the 
strongest sanction to the Church's authority." 
Lecky says: "Rude tribes accustomed in their 
own lands to pay absolute obedience to their 
priests, found themselves in a foreign country, 
confronted by a priesthood far more imposing 
than that which they had left, by gorgeous cere- 
monies well-fitted to entice, and by threats of 
coming judgment well-fitted to scare their imagi- 
nations. Disconnected from all their old associa- 
tions, they bowed before the majesty of civiliza- 
tion, and the Latin religion, like the Latin 
language, though with many adulterations, reigned 
over the new society. The doctrine of exclusive 
salvation and the doctrine of daemons had an 



118 JUSTICE AND MERCY. 

admirable missionary power. The first produced 
an ardor of proselytizing which the polytheist 
could never rival; while the pagan, who was easily 
led to recognize the Christian God, was menaced 
with eternal fire if he did not take the further step 
of breaking off from his old divinities." — Hist, of 
Europ. Morals, pp. 179-80. 

By these means were the rude tribes of the 
North brought under the dominion of the Church. 
During this period, as one may find by consulting 
the pages of Milman or Lecky, the notion of 
hell ran rampant. The flames raged unchecked. 
The scene of future retribution was made as terri- 
ble as the morbid imagination of priests and 
prelates could make it. Elements gathered from 
all mythologies and superstitions were put into it, 
till the human mind sank exhausted under the ac- 
cumulation of horrors. The darkest period of 
Christian history is precisely the period during 
which this doctrine flourished most luxuriantly. 
It was the appeal of priestcraft to ignorance. 

VI. What were some of the consequences? 
What was the practical outcome of this awful doc- 
trine? 

The results are seen, first of all, 

1. In the immense increase of insanity. 

"The received opinions about eternal torture, 
and ever present daemons, and the continued 
strain upon the imagination in dwelling upon an 



ENDLESS PUNISHMENT. 119 

unseen world, were pre-eminently fitted to produce 
madness in those who were at all predisposed to 
it, and where insanity had actually appeared, to 
determine the form and complexion of the hallu- 
cinations of the maniac. Theology supplying all 
the images that acted most powerfully upon the 
imagination, most, madness for many centuries 
took a theological cast." — Lecky, p. 86. 

2. In the rise of asceticism. 

Under terror of coming judgment, thousands 
forsook the world, friends, families, and all, and 
fled into the wilderness, thinking that in isolation 
and penance they could alone lead a life that 
would save them from the flames of the future. 

3. In persecutions for heresy. 

In an age when conformity with the Church 
counted more than purity of life, the sword was 
whetted. Farrar declares: "These pictures of 
hell,— these human additions to and fancies con- 
cerning the future state of retribution, have been 
the chief cause of religious persecution. It is the 
opinion of a modern critic that the two words in 
the Vulgate, et ardent, — 'and they are burned', — 
spoken actually of dead boughs, and metaphori- 
cally of the state of souls so long as they are sev- 
ered from Christ, kindled the infamous fires of the 
Inquisition. It was these doctrines which made 
men think that they did God service by thrusting 
martyrs to gasp out their souls in the flames of 



120 JUSTICE AND MERCY. 

Toledo and of Smithfield. 'As the souls of heretics 
are hereafter to be eternally burning in hell/ — such 
was the reasoning of Queen Mary Tudor in de- 
fense of her awful persecution, — 'there can be 
nothing more proper than for me to imitate the 
Divine Vengeance by burning them on earth.' 
The popular belief in the inconceivable brutalities 
which (as they were told) went on in hell, made 
men indifferent to the guilt and shame of inflict- 
ing torments on the bodies of their fellow-men." 
— Mercy and Judgment, p. 1 16. 

4. In the rise of the practice of granting indid- 
gences. 

The ideas of hell became so awful that some 
mitigation was at length devised in the invention 
of Purgatory. But even this was devised in the 
interests of the Church. For although the spirits 
of the dead might be detained in Purgatory to be 
fitted for heaven, they were allowed to slip through 
to hell unless the surviving friends paid liberally 
for the prayers of the Church; so that hell became 
the instrumentality of terror by which priestcraft 
robbed the living. "The outrageous and notorious 
immorality of the monasteries during the century 
before the reformation was chiefly due to their 
great wealth; and that immorality, as the writings 
of Erasmus and Ulric Von Hutten show, gave a 
powerful impulse to the new movement, while 
the abuses of the indulgences were the immediate 



ENDLESS PUNISHMENT. 121 

cause of the revolt of Luther. But these things 
arrived only after many centuries of successful 
fraud. The religious terrorism that was unscrupu- 
lously employed had done its work, and the chief 
riches of Christendom had passed into the coffers 
of the Church." 

I have shown, in this imperfect and fragmentary 
way, how this doctrine took its rise, its develop- 
ment into ghastly and horrible forms, the purposes 
for which it was used by the Church, and some of 
its direful consequences. In its entire course there 
is not a single redeeming feature. It is condemned 
at the bar of Reason, Scripture, and History. 



[Note: This lecture was originally entirely unwritten, 
with the exception of two or three pages of historical refer- 
ences. I have simply aimed to give an outline of the sub- 
ject, with the appropriate authorities under each point. The 
lecture as delivered exactly has gone — never to be recalled. 
— M. D. S.] 



VII. 
THE NEW MOTIVES. 

[Sunday Evening, Nov. 23, 1890.] 

" God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy 
Ghost and with power; who went about doing good 
and heali?ig all that were oppressed of the devil; for 
God was with hint." — Acts 10:38. 

" He that doeth good is of God." — 3 John i i . 

Some time ago I was present at the organiza- 
tion of a new church and preached the ordination 
sermon of its minister. In the evening after I had 
gone to my room at the hotel, I sat alone with my 
conscience, and something like the following con- 
versation took place: 

Conscience: What did all this mean in which 
you were concerned to-day? Why did you help 
organize that church? Why did you induct that 
young man into the ministry? Why are you in 
the ministry yourself? 

Myself: Your questions are very abrupt; I 
cannot answer them as suddenly as you propound 
them. Give me time to think. At a more con- 
venient season I will send for thee! 

Conscience: Why was that fine building in 
which you regularly preach erected? Was it 
simply that people might come together to listen 



THE NEW MOTIVES. 123 

to the sermons that emanate from the pulpit and 
the music that floats from the gallery? Is that 
all? And if that is all, and you are an earnest 
man, what do you think about it? 

But without giving me a moment to think about 
it, the questioner went on piling "hills on hills and 
Alps on Alps": 

If you throw aside the old sanctions of religion, 
what have you left? What is there to inspire you? 
Why should you open your lips or lift your hands? 
What did you mean by preaching that sermon to- 
night? What do you expect that church you 
helped organize to accomplish? Come, now, be 
honest! 

I roused myself. I also began to question: If 
I do not believe that the vast majority of the re- 
sponsible portion of the human race is pouring like 
the torrent of Niagara, over the precipice of time 
into a bottomless abyss, why should I preach and 
work? Why should I remain in the ministry 
another day? If I do not believe that there is an 
endless hell of some description from which the 
souls of men are to be snatched "as brands from 
the burning," what is the use of church or ministry? 

If, on the other hand, I believe that in every soul 
and throughout the whole universe, the good will 
at last put the evil under its feet, as the archangel 
the dragon, why do I preach that doctrine? What 
effect will it have upon the grand result? Why 



124 JUSTICE AND MERCY. 

not be silent? disband your societies? raze your 
edifices to the ground? 

I was now fully roused and I answered impul- 
sively, 

I. First: I preach this doctrine of the 

OUTCOME BECAUSE I BELIEVE THAT IT IS TRUE. 

No matter now why I believe it; that has noth- 
ing to do with the present question. The only 
commendation that truth needs is truth. It has no 
apologies to offer. It has no excuses to make. It 
does not "bend low, and in a bondman's key, with 
bated breath and whispering humbleness," ask 
leave to be. It asserts its right to the scepter, and 
mounts the throne with unfaltering tread! 

I fear I have but little patience with those timid 
souls who say, "All that you teach may be true; 
but it is dangerous. It will unsettle people. It 
will make them reckless. They will throw aside 
all restraints; they will plunge deeper and deeper 
and deeper into depravity. Be careful, be careful! 

My only reply is, — if it be true it is not danger- 
ous ! It may be made so indeed, by those who 
imperfectly apprehend it, or by those who wilfully 
pervert it ; but in itself, it is not dangerous. And 
as for unsettling people, let the truth unsettle them, 
and that right speedily ! If they have taken refuge 
in a fortress of lies, the sooner it is demolished the 
better ! 

A friend of mine not long ago received a letter 



THE NE W MO TIVES. 125 

from a prominent evangelical clergyman of - a 
neighboring city, in which he said: "I do not be- 
lieve in ^ome of the things I preach any more than 
you do; but I consider them necessary for the 
people. They will not do right unless we hold a 
whip over their heads." This is precisely the prin- 
ciple upon which many men are to-day preaching 
the darker and sterner elements of theology. The 
people need them. They will not do right without 
them. They must feel that undying flames are 
crackling to receive their souls, or they will not be 
pure and just and honest. It is dangerous to teach 
them the real truth on the subject! 

Frederick Denison Maurice, one of the sweetest 
spirits in the established church of England, said: 
"I cannot base morality upon the dread of some 
future punishments, upon the expectation of some 
future rewards. I believe the attempts to make 
them moral by such means have always failed, are 
failing now more egregiously and monstrously than 
ever. I believe that they fail because they are in 
conformity with our notions, and not with God's 
purpose as set forth in Holy Scripture. There 
I find God using punishments to make men sensi- 
ble of the great misery of being at war with his 
will, showing them the blessed results to their 
spirits, to their bodies, to nations, to families, to 
individuals, to the father and the child, to the mas- 
ter and the workman, to the persons who subdue 



126 JUSTICE AND MERCY. 

the earth, and to the earth which they subdue, from 
conformity to his will." 

I say again that truth is not dangerous. It is 
falsehood that is to be feared. The things that are 
to be feared are theological misrepresentations of 
God; making him darkness instead of light; writ- 
ing "Hate" and "Vengeance" for his names instead 1 
of "Love," the fair title that glitters like a star 
upon the brow of the Eternal; calling him "Fiend" 
instead of "Father." These are the things to be 
feared. 

And more. It is dishonesty in the pulpit as well 
as in the pew that is to be feared. It is believing 
one thing and preaching another that is dangerous. 
These are the things that undermine human confi- 
dence in all things and lead to mental and moral 
anarchy. Is it so that a lie can do more for men 
than the truth? Is it so that fear is better for them 
than knowledge? No! the time is gone by, if it 
ever existed, when people are to be driven to 
heaven by a whip of falsehood. 

I am told sometimes that certain scientific doc- 
trines, such as evolution, are dangerous. Like an 
earthquake beneath a city, such an idea will heave 
the solid ground under all religion. The question 
is not, Are these affirmations of science dangerous? 
or are they safe? The question forever and ever 
is, Are they true? There is no skepticism so great 
as that which refuses to accept and follow what 



THE NE W MO TIVES. 127 

one believes to be true, for fear of consequences. 
No cowardice is so great as that which refuses to 
go where truth leads, though it be to the scaffold 
and to the stake. 

The consequences of not following ought to 
concern us more. There may, indeed, be tempo- 
rary and incidental disturbance; but in the end, 
when we have become readjusted, truth will vindi- 
cate itself. There is always disturbance in the 
ground where a new seed is planted; there is still 
more when it bursts and begins to shoot upward. 
But when it blossoms and bears fruit, it is vindi- 
cated! 

II. But the questioner is not yet satisfied. 
If your doctrine is true, what follows? 

Is not the objection still in full force, that you 
have nothing to work for? That you are left 
without motive? 

Not so; every new truth that comes into the 
world creates the new motives that rally its adher- 
ents and make them strive for victory. Every 
righteous principle furnishes reasons for its proc- 
lamation. Take this idea, then, — that in every indi- 
vidual and throughout the whole universe, the good 
will at last put the evil under its feet. What motives 
does it furnish, aside from the fact that we believe 
it true? 

i . That of helping the good and fighting the evil. 

This truth assumes that there is evil in the world» 



128 JUSTICE AND MERCY. 

that it is all about us, and within us, that it is a 
serious and awful thing; and the thought it 
impresses is, that here is the place and now is the 
time to fight that evil. It transfers the emphasis 
from the future to the present. It declares that it 
is far more noble to try to save men from the ac- 
tual hells of this world than from the fancied hells 
of the next. Whatever may be true or not true of 
the future, one thing is certain — there is work for 
every earnest soul, for every willing hand, — work 
upon this planet, work at this very hour! So long 
as there are hells of vice and crime and pauperism 
and disease and drunkenness in this world, so long 
the spirit of humanity — the very spirit of Jesus 
Christ — will not be without motives for its exercise. 
The fire and brimstone are here. Here rage the 
waves of the burning lake. Here let the saving 
arm be outstretched. 

If we want an example, where can we find a bet- 
ter than is furnished by the text? "God anointed 
Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with 
power." And when he had that power, how did 
he use it? "Who went about doing good." In those 
five words you have the whole philosophy of life. 
"What is the object of life?" How often has that 
question been asked. Has a better answer ever 
been given? Then the text adds, "For God was 
with him." And John tells us that God is with 
everyone who does good. "He that doeth good 



THE NEW MOTIVES. 129 

is of God." Whoever "accepts such a ministry as 
this, be he priest or layman, whoever is willing to 
do all the good he can in this world, — waiting for 
what he can do in the next till he reaches it — that 
onehasthe presence and the help of God himself — 
the same presence that was with Jesus, the same 
help that sustained him. 

It is related by Edward Everett Hale, that on 
one occasion a lady said to him, "To you the dedi- 
cation of this church means simply one more name 
on the calendar. To the people of this town, it 
means better books, better music, better sewerage, 
better health and better life, less drunkenness, 
more purity and better government." I hope some- 
thing of this sort is what that church I helped to 
organize will mean to the people in that commu- 
nity. I hope something of the sort is what this 
church means to this community. In the Jewish 
legend, when the people came to Marah, they 
found the waters so bitter they could not drink 
them. And the Lord showed Moses a tree to cast 
into the waters, and when he had done so they 
were made sweet. Every church should be such 
a tree, cast into the bitter waters of human life to 
make them sweet. 

Indeed, it may be gravely doubted whether the 
old motives influence any of the churches as they 
once did. Their attention is turning more and 
more to practical humanitarian work, to that work 



130 JUSTICE AND MERCY. 

which is intended to bring the kingdom of God 
into the hearts of men and the life of society here 
and now. In what is called Foreign Mission Work, 
the emphasis is changing. It is found that those 
whom we call heathen do not joyfully accept the 
glad tidings that the souls of their ancestors are in 
hell, suffering endless and immitigable torment; 
and that they themselves, if they become Chris- 
tians, shall never, never meet those who have gone 
before. One cannot help admiring the old Saxon 
chief. When the missionary led him down to the 
waters of baptism, he paused on the brink of the 
stream and asked: "Will this act separate me from 
my Pagan ancestors in the next world?" "Yes!" 
The chief proudly drew himself up and turned 
away, refusing to enter a heaven whose gates were 
so narrow, preferring to be damned^if damned 
he must be — in company with the good and great 
of his tribe. 

It is said that when Boniface was sent to preach 
the gospel to the Franks, he found in their terri- 
tory a huge oak which they had consecrated to 
the god of thunder. Under this they held their 
courts, performed their superstitious rites, and of- 
fered sacrifices to the god. Boniface resolved to 
put an end to these superstitions by applying the 
axe to the huge trunk of this object of their vener- 
ation. The Franks, as he plied the axe, gathered 
around him and looked on in awe and wonder. 



THE NEW MOTIVES. 131 

As blow after blow fell upon the great tree, they 
confidently expected a thunderbolt would rend the 
sky, and strike the sacrilegious axeman to the 
earth. But when no such interposition followed 
their fear was changed to reverence and they ac- 
cepted the new religion. When we apply the axe 
to this deadly poison-tree of endless suffering, 
with which so many superstitions are associated, 
men cry out in fear. The consequences must be 
awful if we destroy it. But after it falls, some 
better growth will take its place, and the safety of 
society will be all the more assured. 

There can be no higher motive for any individ- 
ual or any church than this — the world needs help 
and I can give it. Quench the fires of these pres- 
ent hells, and the lurid flames that glare upon the 
horizon of the future, will melt into the calm, yel- 
low sunshine that predicts the breaking of a fairer 
day. 

2. This truth of the final triumph of good over evil 
in the individual, as zvell as in the universe, furnishes, 
another motive in the possibilities it assumes to be 
wrapped up in each human soul. 

We look at men to see what they are, and to 
consider what can be made of them. We feel 
assured that there is something in every one that, 
for its own sake, is worth culture and develop- 
ment. We work for them because they are capa- 
ble of something better. We are not influenced 



132 JUSTICE AND MERCY, 

so much by considerations of endless fire, as we are 
by the question, What can be done for this man? 
What can be made of him? 

It doth not yet appear what any of us shall be. It 
doth not yet appear what the least developed speci- 
men of our race shall be. It doth not yet appear what 
any dwarfed and sinning soul shall be, — when 
freed from its peculiar conformation of skull,when 
freed from the grossness of the animal, when freed 
from ignorance and blindness, it rises to higher 
conditions. A blot on the earth, it shall become a 
star of the firmament. A bit of coal in the grimy 
mine, it shall glow with all the splendor of a dia- 
mond upon the brow of the King of Kings. A 
caterpillar upon the earth, it shall unfold into a 
rainbow-winged angel in the sunlight of heaven. 

Carelessly you pick up the acorn in the forest, 
and throw it aside. The poet takes it and sees its 
wondrous possibilities. Coming centuries unroll 
before him. He sees in the dim vista the majestic 
oak. He hears the laughter of children at play 
beneath its shade. He £ees the wayfaring man 
reposing under its shadow; leaning against its 
trunk, the young man whispers his love; kneeling 
upon its roots, the mourner pours forth her sor- 
row! All this and more the poet sees, as he holds 
in his hand the acorn you have scorned. All this 
and more does the eye of Infinite Love behold in 
the souls that men have given over to evil and re- 



THE NEW MOTIVES. 133 

manded to perdition. Fairer growths than we 
ever dreamed shall rise into forms of majesty and 
beauty from these unsightly germs. 

3. The truth of the final triumph of good over evil 
furnishes another tremendous motive in its power of 
consolation. 

Let me take an instance from fiction that has 
its counterpart in many a fact. In "John Ward, 
Preacher," there is a dissolute character, one Tom 
Davis, but a man of noble impulses, who rushes 
into a great fire to save a little child, and comes 
out so completely exhausted, scorched by fire and 
suffocated with smoke, that he drops to earth and 
expires in a few moments. His wife is almost 
frantic. Elder Dean tells her that she ought to 
be resigned to God's justice. He tells her that 
"good folks ought to be glad when sinners go to 
the bad place, even when they are belonging to 
them." The woman with nothing but her narrow 
creed to support her says that she believes it all 
but that she never can love God again. 

"He never giv' Tom any chance, an' how am I 
goin' to love him now? Tom was born, as you 
might say, drinkin'. His father died in a drunken 
fit, an' his mother giv' it to her babe with her milk. 
Then what schoolin' did he get? Nothin', 'less it 
was his mother lickin' him. Tom often told me 
that. He hadn't no trade learned neither; jest 
rafted with men as bad as him. Is it any wonder 



134 JUSTICE AND MEkCY. 

he wasn't converted? I ain't denyin' religion 

or anything like that. I'm a Christian an' a 
member; but I can't love Him; so there's no use 
talkin' — I can't love Him." 

And on the preacher's lips there was no message 
of hope; nothing but the stern, unqualified message 
— "The soul that sinneth, it shall die!" 

You ask me what else could be said in such a 
case? I should have said this: My good woman 
God is the same in the next world, and in all 
worlds, that he is in this, and the name that in all 
worlds and from everlasting is written across his 
shining brow is Love! There is no sea in this 
universe upon which our life-barks can be launched 
where God is not still our guide and pilot. "We 
cannot drift beyond his love and care!" The very 
nobility of heart which prompted your husband to 
rush into that fire to save another life at the 
sacrifice of his own, is the best proof in the world 
that there was something better in him, whose 
growth was checked here by his hard condition in 
life; but now that the- hand of death has broken 
the shackles of the flesh, the growth of that nobler 
nature which was in him, will be unhindered; and 
in some fairer clime, under a brighter sun, and 
with more favorable surroundings, it will blossom 
and bring forth fruit in the gardens of the Lord. 

I should have turned upon the preacher and said: 
Perish forever the diabolical creed that would shut 



THE JVE W MO TIVES. 135 

the gates of opportunity, the gates of heaven, in 
the face of the worst man on earth who died to 
save another! Perish forever the theology of dark- 
ness which sends to an endless hell any soul that 
has followed, however feebly and afar off, in the 
path of sacrifice which Jesus trod on his way to 
Calvary and the cross! 

Thousands of souls are in need of this consola- 
tion, — in need of the other part of that ministry 
which was assigned to Jesus, who not only went 
about doing good, but also "healing all that were 
oppressed of the devil." Translated into modern 
phrase, we may say, "dispelling superstition, 
banishing that cruel and slavish fear of a personal 
devil and an endless hell that oppresses multitudes 
of trembling souls." How many need this ministry 
to lift the woe from their own hearts and the awful 
shadow from the graves of their dead! 

III. My questioner asked me in that conference 
the other night: "If you believe that in every 
soul and throughout the whole universe the good 
will at last put the evil under its feet, why do 
you preach it?" 

I turned upon that questioner and said, "If I 
believed in anything else, I should leave the 
ministry to-morrow!" In this very thought i 

FIND MY HIGHEST INSPIRATION. 

If I believed, as many do, in the existence of a 
personal devil, who for the last six thousand years 



136 JUSTICE AND MERCY. 

has been having his own way in this world; who 
has so far beaten God in every battle that has been 
joined; who, by the common teaching on the 
subject, must now have a kingdom so vast that the 
kingdom of God is but a petty province compared 
with it, — I should not care to serve so helpless a 
God! What respect could we have for a being 
who, with all his omnipotence, so manages things 
in his own universe that Satan becomes virtual 
monarch and hell is in the majority? A helpless 
and imbecile king — a Louis XVI, — can inspire no 
reverence or zeal, whether his throne be on earth 
or in heaven. No swords will be drawn for him, 
no lives will be pledged in his service. But for 
the God whom we worship, Father and Ruler, 
tender and strong, beautiful and loving, — secure in 
the final affection and allegiance of every subject, 
— for that God we may dare to do and die! 

There is all the more reason for earnestness up- 
on our part, when we know that our labor for men 
will not be in vain! When the issue is uncertain 
or foredoomed to failure, the heart sinks and the 
arm becomes powerless. But when we feel that 
some day the least and lowest creature who bears 
the divine image, blurred and marred though it be, 
shall be brought to the holiness and joy of the 
Father's house and presence, the fainting heart is 
revived and the falling arm is lifted. I do not 
understand how any one can be cheerful or enthu- 



THE NEW MOTIVES, 137 

siastic who believes that, in spite of all our sermons 
and prayers, our churches and Sunday schools, our 
Christian associations and our missionary societies; 
in spite of everything that is being done by earnest 
men and noblewomen, — all but the merest fraction 
of the responsible creatures for whom we strive 
are going down to ruin and misery endless and 
hopeless. If I believed that it would not only blot 
from the earth the last patch of sunshine, but it 
would so paralyze my energies that I never more 
could put my hand to the plough. If I believed 
that, I said to my inward questioner, there would 
be no object in remaining in the ministry. I should 
hang my harp on the willows and let those sing 
the songs of Zion who still could find a tongue. 

While confident of the consummation, let us be 
well assured that it is linked by inexorable logic 
to every effort we put forth. It will not come of 
its own accord. It cannot be separated from hu- 
man work. The chariot may be hindered, the king- 
dom may be delayed, by those who are careless and 
unfaithful. The sooner every brain is alive, every 
heart in sympathy, and every hand busy, the sooner 
will the temple be builded. The vision of the out- 
come ought not to sing us a cradle lullaby, but a 
battle song. 

It remains for us to put our ideas into prac- 
tice, to extend their influence more widely, to 
make all our agencies more powerful. Let us 



138 JUSTICE AND MERCY. 

not say, ''Success is certain, therefore let us be 
idle." The true motto is, "Success is certain; 
therefore work, work, work the harder!" On the 
eve of victory, let us nqt fling down our arms; on 
the skirts of the harvest, let us not throw away our 
sickles; on the very steps of the throne, let us not 
turn back from the coronation. Sound the trumpet' 
along the entire line! In all the departments of 
our work, in the Sunday School, in the young peo- 
ple's societies, everywhere, let us be more vigor- 
ous and useful. Extend to our weaker interests a 
helping hand. Unite with them in the work 
Make their cause our own. We cannot be isolated. 
To stand alone, to stand idle, is death. Activity 
is life. Sympathy is life. Victory is life. 

"We are living, we are dwelling 

In a grand and awful time; 
In an age on ages telling, 

To be living is sublime! 
Hark! the waking up of nations — 

Gog and Magog to the fray; 
Hark! what soundeth is creation 

Groaning for her latter day. 

"Will ye play, then,— will ye dally 

With your music and your wine? 
Up! it is Jehovah's rally — 

God's own arm hath need of thine! 
Hark! the onset! Will ye fold your 

Faith-clad arms in lazy lock? 
Up, oh up! thou drowsy soldier, 

Worlds are charging to the shock. 



THE NEW MOTIVES. 139 

"Worlds are charging — heaven beholding, 

Thou hast but an hour to fight; 
Now, the blazoned cross unfolding; 

On — right onward — for the right! 
Strike, let all the soul within you 

For the truth's sake go abroad; 
Strike, let every nerve and sinew 

Tell on ages, tell for Gad!" 



VIII. 
THE REAL PENALTY OF SIN. 

[Sunday Evening, Nov. 30, 1890.] 

" Be not deceived: God is not mocked; for what- 
soever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." — 
Gal, 6:7. 

Because we reject the doctrine of Endless Pun- 
ishment, we do not therefore reject the idea of 
Penalty. We emphasize it. We do not dispense 
with the element of fear. It is as much a part of 
human nature as hope. If it no longer influences 
as of yore, it is because men have grown skeptical 
of the fabulous objects presented to it. What 
shall we fear? Not the wrath of God. We do not 
need protection from Him. He ought never to be 
so presented as to make men shrink from his pres- 
ence. What shall we fear? Not the hideous hells 
of the future. This is the fear of superstition. It 
is vanishing, because it is baseless. 

What shall we fear? There is something real to 
be dreaded, and that is sin. Not the sin of Adam. 
Let him take care of that; it does not concern you 
and me. Not -original or inherited depravity. This 
is mere fiction. But that which is no fiction is 
one's own personal wro?ig- doing/ This is more ter- 
rible than all the imaginary frowns of that Deity 



THE REAL PENALTY OF SIN 141 

whom men have pictured sitting clothed with thun- 
der and armed with lightnings in the skies; more 
terrible than the lurid flames that burn beyond the 

horizon. 

"For myself alone I doubt; 
All is well, I know, without; 
I alone the beauty mar, 
I alone the music jar." 

While sin is real, penalty is also real. It is pos- 
itive as transgression, and goes hand in hand with 
it, an indissoluble brotherhood. While the hells 
of superstition have vanished, the hells that are 
constantly formed by such dark builders as evil 
passions, evil thoughts, evil conduct, evil character, 
remain. For these devils and their angels, there is 
woe enough prepared. 

I. The Reality of Retribution. 

While we reject the midnight fancies that have 

so long held sway, we discern more clearly than 

ever, how in the structure of the human soul and 

body, in the constitution of society, in the laws of 

nature, is written in new lines the old warning, 

"Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." 

What Milton wrote of Satan is true of every sinner: 

"—Within him hell he brings, 

And round about him; nor from hell 

One step no more than from himself can fly 

By change of place." 

And the great arch-fiend cries out: — 
"Me miserable ! which way shall I fly 
Infinite wrath and infinite despair? 
Which way I fly is hell; myself am hell!" 



142 JUSTICE AND MERCY. 

(i) The penalty that comes through the opera- 
tion of these laws is certain. It is not arbitrarily- 
inflicted, nor can it be arbitrarily set aside. 

We have been taught that man could escape the 
consequences of his ill-doing by seeking refuge in 
the blood of Christ, — that one drop would wash 
away the stains of a life-time and leave pure and 
white the worst mass of corruption that still re- 
tained the human form. "Only believe!" To 
teach that by any magical process, any touch of a 
supernatural power in response to a prayer or cry 
uttered at the last moment, such marvelous trans- 
formation may be wrought, is to put a premium 
upon wickedness and encourage the transgressor. 
Easy forgiveness makes sin defiant. Men will vio- 
late law, so long as they are assured that some Di- 
vine interference will, in the end, set aside the con- 
sequences, because some Divine victim has borne 
them. A number of years ago, when a great wave 
of defalcations swept over the East, the clergy- 
men of New Haven got together, and seriously 
questioned whether they themselves had not been 
partially guilty in preaching too much vicarious 
sacrifice and too little personal righteousness and 
responsibility. It was a wise question to ask. 

Do not misunderstand me. I shall never, if I 
can help it, preach a sermon from which hope 
must be excluded. I do not despair, in the grand 
outcome, of any one. I look with prophecy of 



THE REAL PENALTY OF SIN. 143 

good upon the very vilest. Over the darkest 
abyss of sin and suffering, I see a light from the 
throne of God. But my hope is based, not upon 
immunity from suffering which the legerdemain of 
vicarious sacrifice offers, but largely upon the very 
fact of suffering itself. Every man must reap the 
harvest of his own sowing. There is no escape. 
Upon that harvest no blight or mildew shall fall. 
No hired or voluntary substitute can thrust in for 
him the sickle. Every man shall bear his own 
burden. Every man shall expiate his own sins. 
Every man shall suffer for what he himself has 
done, and so long as he sins so long shall he suffer, 
whether in this world or the next. Character 
established by long and gradual processes, cannot 
be changed in the twinkling of an eye. Pain it- 
self will be a consuming fire, — a fire kindled in 
love, — which will at last burn out the sin that feeds 
its flame. 

(2) And this penalty does not wait. It begins 
at once. It goes on. It is here and now, no less 
than there and then. 

The idea of a future general judgment at the 
destruction of this world, where accounts shall be 
settled once for all and all at once, must share 
with the doctrine of vicarious sacrifice the re- 
sponsibility of fostering carelessness and pro- 
crastination. "Because sentence against an evil 
work is not executed speedily, therefore the hearts 



144 JUSTICE AND MERCY. 

of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil." 
Delay the reckoning and you increase the sinner's 
impunity. By every remove of the sentence does 
his forehead become more brazen. A recent 
writer says: "Notwithstanding many angry dis- 
cussions about punishment, the Church has not 
yet come up to the true idea of retribution. Hell 
has been placed too far away to have any practi- 
cal effect on life and conduct." We must wake to 
the fact that it is here and now, not only inevita- 
ble but present. 

"They that are in sin," says Swedenborg, "are 
also in the punishment of sin." 

"The stern behests of duty, 

The doom-book open thrown, 
The heaven ye seek, the hell ye fear, 

Are with yourselves alone!" 

II. — The Nature of Retribution. 

What is the penalty, and how is it executed? 
If there is a rational use of fear, what are the real 
objects? Why should we fear sin? 

I. We may read the penalty that is affixed to 
sin, first of all, in deterioration of the moral, and 
often of the physical, nature. 

Every evil thought or deed has sentence against 
it speedily executed in the character. Our man- 
hood and womanhood suffer loss. Sin blights and 
shrivels. One cannot do a mean thing or think a 
base thought without becoming like the thing he 



THE REAL PENALTY OF SIN. 145 

thinks or does. The worm takes on the color of 
the leaf upon which it feeds. Every vile thought 
leaves its trail of slime behind, leaves the 
mind filthier for even its momentary presence. 
Every bad act of a man's life makes it easier for 
him evermore to do the bad. A miser, not only 
scrapes his fingers to the bone in raking together 
his money, he hardens his heart to the core. 
"What is put into the strong box," it is truly said, 
"is taken out of the man." He who cheats, is 
cheating himself worse than all others. The thief 
steals from himself; the liar turns himself into a 
living lie; the profligate is his own victim. The 
man who attempts to injure his neighbor, only suc- 
ceeds in injuring himself. The wrong that he does 
his own soul is ten times more severe and lasting 
than any evil he can inflict! "No man," says 
Burke, "ever had a point of pride that was not in- 
jurious to him;" and St. Bernard wrote: "Nothing 
can work me damage except myself; the harm 
that I sustain I carry about with me, and never am 
a real sufferer but by my own fault." 

(i) We are sometimes blinded and confused 
by the fact that we see no outward signs of penalty, 
that those who do evil seem not to be moved by 
any pangs of suffering, and even prosper. While 
the processes of retribution go on continuously 
they do at length bring crises that reveal to the 
wrong-doer and to others the inevitable tendency 



146 JUSTICE AND MERCY. 

of even the smallest deviation from righteousness. 
In a passage from Ecclesiastes we have these re- 
markable words: "Though a sinner do evil a hun- 
dred times, and his days be prolonged, * * it shall 
not be well with the wicked." The eyes of justice 
are not bandaged. Nothing has clearer or surer 
vision. If it were possible to realize the dream of the 
German poet, to conceive of this universe as hav- 
ing no God at its center, yet would it be impossible 
for men to escape judgment. The laws of our own 
being, soul and body, — the laws of the material 
universe, — would bring certain retribution to every 
one who violates them, though the Divine Judge 
be banished and his throne be torn from its founda- 
tion. If men will flatter themselves that they can 
escape God, let them know that they cannot es- 
cape nature. In cell of prison, in ward of hospital, 
in cage of asylum; in wrecked body and shattered 
brain; in ruined honor and blighted hopes; in ex- 
ile from country, in loneliness and desolation of 
spirit, does Nature execute judgment for her bro- 
ken statutes. Who runs in her debt will find the 
uttermost farthing exacted. The thought of Na- 
ture visiting through her laws the penalty of break- 
ing them is vastly more impressive than, yea, more 
terrible than, the picture of Nature in convulsions, 
the sky a shriveled parchment, the earth reeling 
like a drunken giant! 

Sow the wind, and you shall reap the whirlwind! 



THE REAL PENALTY OF SIN. 147 

Sow your "wild oats" and you shall reap pollution! 

(2) While retribution goes back of all outward 
prosperity, the crisis does not always come in the ces- 
sation of that prosperity . The blow does not neces- 
sarily fall in the destruction of the outward fabric, 
but in the fearful revelation of what has been going 
on within. We wake from our dreams of peace to 
find an armed host. We have indulged a wrong 
thought, — not very harmful we supposed, — we 
awake to find that it has grown into an evil pas- 
sion. We indulged a little dislike; we wake to 
find it a full-grown hatred. We said a little some- 
thing bitter and malicious now and then; we wake 
to find that the tongue of a scold, or fault-finder, 
or slanderer, is defiling our mouths! In the Indian 
fable a dwarf asked a king for as much land as he 
could cover in three steps. When the king gave 
the permission, the dwarf instantly became a giant 
who with one stride covered the land, with another 
the waters, and at the third knocked the king from 
his throne and took possession. How often do we 
wake to find that our dwarfs have sprung up into 
giants! 

"You do not look as if you had prospered by 
your wickedness," said a gentleman to a notori- 
ously wicked man. "I have not prospered at all," 
cried the man feelingly. "If I had given half the 
time and energy to some honest calling which I 
have spent in trying to get a living without work, 



148 JUSTICE AND MERCY. 

I might now be a man of property and character, 
instead of the homeless wretch I am." He then 
told his story, and ended by saying, "I have been 
twice in state-prison, I have made acquaintance 
with all sorts of miseries in my life, but I tell you my 
worst punishment is in being what I am!' No bolt 
direct from the hand of God could have added to 
his torture. The worst punishment of sin is to be 
the sinner! 

2. Closely connected with all this moral dete- 
rioration is the action of conscie?ice which forms a 
part of the penalty of transgression. 

(i) When the revelation of what it has be- 
come is made to the soul, conscience emphasizes 
that revelation with the lash, drives it home with 
the sword. Conscience makes keen the sense of 
personal degradation with the feelings of grief, 
shame, remorse, anguish of spirit. Conscience 
makes havoc in the soul by raising vain regrets 
over lost opportunities and extinguished possi- 
bilities. Here is a fable I picked up that illus- 
trates : 

On the bank of a rivulet sat a little child. Her 
lap was filled with flowers. Her face was as ra- 
diant as the sunshine, and her voice as clear as 
that of the robin. 

The stream went rippling on, while, with every 
gush of its music, the child lifted a flower and, 
laughing gayly, threw it upon the water. In her 



THE REAL PENALTY OF SIN. 149 

glee, she forgot that her treasures were growing 
less; and, with the quick motion of childhood, 
she threw them one after another upon the spark- 
ling tide, until every bud and blossom had disap- 
peared. Then, seeing her loss, she sprang to her 
feet, and, weeping, called aloud to the stream, 
"Bring back my flowers!" 

But the rivulet danced along, regardless of her 
sorrow. While it bore the blooming burden 
away, her words were sent back by a taunting 
echo along its reedy margin. And long after, 
amid the wailing of the breeze and the fitful 
bursts of childish grief, was heard the unavailing 
cry, "Bring back my flowers!" 

Ye who are idly wasting the precious hours and 
opportunities of youth, see, in the thoughtless, 
impulsive child, an emblem of yourselves. All 
these are perfumed flowers. Let their fragrance 
be diffused in blessings all around thee, and ascend 
as sweet incense to their beneficent Giver. 

Else, when ye have carelessly flung them all 
away, and see them receding upon the swift 
waters of time, ye will cry, in tones more sorrowful 
than those of the weeping child, "Bring back my 
flowers! " And the only answer will be an echo 
from the shadowy Past, "Bring back my flowers!" 

(2) Conscience, too, forces upon the spirit the 
wrongs done to others, the suffering of innocent 
hearts, rights disregarded, feet led astray, the 



150 JUSTICE AND MERCY. 

fountains of happiness turned into springs of bit- 
terness. 

Memory is the servant of conscience. You 
have wronged some one. Banish the thought. 
Plunge into business or revelry. Away with the 
recollection. But in an hour when you think not, 
memory's wand will conjure up the specters of 
the past. You must look upon them again and 
again, here or hereafter, till the sight burns into 
your soul with fiercer flames than fire and brim- 
stone. Why is it that fugitives from justice often 
give themselves up, but that the Nemesis of their 
crimes is continually at their heels, and there is 
no escape but in surrender? 

"But in these cases, 
We still have judgment here; that we but teach 
Bloody instructions, which, being taught, return 
To plague the inventor: this even-handed justice 
Commends the ingredients of our poison'd chalice 
To our own lips." 

(3) Conscience punishes by often turning the 
wrong-doer into a coward, fearful of the disclosure 
of his guilt. 

The story of Bessus is familiar in Plutarch, 
"that he killed his own father, and the murder lay 
concealed for a long time. At length being, in- 
vited to supper among strangers, after he had so 
loosened a swallow's nest with his spear that it 
fell down, he killed all the young ones. Upon 
which, being asked by the guests that were present 



THE REAL PENALTY OF SIN. 151 

what injury the swallows had done him that he 
should commit such an irregular act, 'Did you not 
hear,' said he, 'these cursed swallows, how they 
clamored and made a noise, false witnesses as 
they were, that I had long ago killed my 
father?'" 

Have we not here an explanation of that Scrip- 
tural expression, "A fearful looking for judgment 
and fiery indignation?" 

Browning illustrates also, how conscience makes 
us afraid of all things. Two culprits hid in the 
forest. A storm arises, and one of them exclaims: 

"Buried in woods we lay, you recollect; 

Swift ran the searching tempest overhead; 

And ever and anon some bright white shaft 

Burned thro' the pine-tree roof — here burned and there 

As if God's messenger thro' the close wood screen 

Plunged and replunged his weapon at a venture. 

Feeling for guilty thee and me!" 

There is a conversation between two villains, in 
Richard III that may also serve as an illustration. 

"First. — So when he opens his purse to give to 
us our reward, thy conscience flies out. 

Second. — Let it go; there's few or none will 
entertain it. 

First. — How if it come to thee again ? 

Second. — I'll not meddle with it. It is a danger- 
ous thing. It makes a man a coward. A man 
cannot steal, but it accuseth him; he cannot swear, 
but it checks him; 'tis a blushing shame- faced 



152 JUSTICE AND MERCY. 

spirit that mutinies in a man's bosom; it fills one 
full of obstacles; it made me once restore a purse 
of gold that I found; it beggars any man that keeps 
it; it is turned, out of all towns and cities for a 
dangerous thing. 
First. — Zounds, it is even now at my elbow!" 
(4) If you tell me that in many cases, the con- 
science is seared, and ceases to trouble, I reply 
that at times it may be silenced but never dethron- 
ed. It may desist from the rod, but only to pre- 
pare for more terrible strokes. Who can say that 
another man's conscience is dead? What do we 
know, in spite of his actions, what goes on in his 
breast? Who can say that his own conscience is 
dead? In the dream of Eugene Aram, the guilty 
man hides the corpse in a thick wood under a huge 
pile of leaves; but when he returns a mighty wind 
has swept the leaves away. He then phinges it 
into a dark stream, but when he comes back the 
stream is dry and the corpse is stark and ghastly 
at the bottom. It is just as impossible to put away 
one's conscience. Bury it. Pile upon it all the 
iniquity you please; heap indifference and scorn 
upon it. Seal the sepulcher with eternal disdain. 
Go your way. The troubler is buried. But in an 
hour when you think not, that sepulcher will be 
rent asunder, and the Great Avenger you thought 
was wrapped in the unbroken slumber of death, 
will spring forth to confront you. 



THE REAL PENALTY OF SIN. 153 

The great masters who have read the human 
heart most thoroughly, — those who, by the con- 
sent of all ages, knew what was in man, — have laid 
heaviest stress upon the workings of conscience 
as an element of retribution. 

Gervinus says of Shakespeare: — 

"The deity in our bosoms Shakespeare has be- 
stowed with intentional distinctness, even upon 
his most abandoned villains, and that too when 
they deny it. To nourish this spark and not to 
quench it, is the loud sermon of all his works." 

In King Richard himself, we have one of the 
most striking instances that Shakespeare has 
given: — 

"O coward conscience, how thou dost afflict me! 
The lights burn blue. It is now dead midnight: 
Cold fearful drops stand on my trembling flesh. 
I am a villain; yet I lie, I am not. 
Fool, of thyself speak well; fool, do not flatter. 
My conscience hath a thousand several tongues, 
And every tongue brings in a several tale, 
And every tale condemns me for a villain. 
Perjury, perjury, in the highest degree; 
Murder, stern murder, in the dir'st degree, 
Thrown to the bar, crying all, Guilty, guilty! 
I shall despair, — There is no creature loves me; 
And if I die, no soul will pity me: — 
Nay, wherefore should they,— since that I myself 
Find in myself no pity to myself? 
Methought the souls of all that I had murdered 
Came to my tent; and every one did threat 
To-morrow's vengeance on the head of Richard." 



154 JUSTICE AND MERCY. 

Charles Dickens also understood something 
about the human heart, and over and over has he 
depicted the Nemesis that, in the pangs of con- 
science, hunted down the evil-doer. In the case 
of the elder Rudge, he makes the culprit speak: — 

"I that in the form of man live the life of a hunted 
beast; that in the body am a spirit, a ghost upon 
the earth, a thing from which all creatures shrink, 
save those curst beings of another world, who will 
not leave me; I am, in the desperation of this 
night, past all fear but that of the hell t in which I 
exist from day to day." 

No one will doubt that Lord Byron knew some 
phases of human life, and those too which would 
add most value to his testimony upon the very 
subject we were illustrating. He is constantly ob- 
truding himself upon the reader, — himself or what 
he fancies himself, — and it may be that it is his 
own experience which he records in the following 
passage from one of his principal poems: 

"The mind that broods o'er guilty woes 
Is like the scorpion girt by fire; 
In circle narrowing as it glows, 
The flames around their captive close; 
Till inly scorched by thousand throes, 
And inly maddening in her ire, 
One and sole relief she knows, — 
The sting she nourished for her foes, 
Whose venom never yet was vain, 
Gives but one pang, and cures all pain, 
She darts into her desperate brain. 



THE REAL PENALTY OF SIN, J 55 

So do the dark in soul expire, 

Or live like scorpion girt by fire; 

So writhes the mind remorse hath riven, 

Unfit for earth, undoomed for heaven; 

Darkness above, despair beneath, 

Around it flame, within it death." 

III. What is the practical thought of this 

DISCOURSE? 

It is this: "Now is the accepted time and now 
is the day of salvation." 

If we sin, we must suffer. The longer we go 
on in sin, the longer shall we be miserable, the 
more of life and joy and usefulness we shall lose! 
Whatever may be the outcome, this much is cer- 
tain: Opportunities are flying past us every day 
that never will come to us again! Every moment 
that is wasted takes away from the sum total of 
our possibilities. Every sin that we commit makes 
it more easy to continue in sin and more difficult 
to turn to righteousness. The longer we do wrong, 
the more intense is the suffering we prepare. All 
our bitter and malicious and impure thoughts are 
but storing with thunder the clouds that shall some 
day break with fury upon our heads. The deeper 
we go down, the longer and more difficult shall we 
find the pathway that leads upward to the heaven 
of purity and peace! And though I believe that 
the pathway will never be impossible, — though I 
believe that the Divine Love and Patience will 
never be exhausted, — yet it seems a folly and ab- 



156 JUSTICE AND MERCY. 

surdity for any soul deliberately to choose that 
road to heaven which winds through all the horrors 
of hell, the mire of moral degradation, the flames 
of conscience! 

To-day is the accepted time. This is the mo- 
ment for starting in the pathway of righteous- 
ness, — a pathway in which we have so glorious a 
leader. I do not preach to you Christ as very 
God — not as the second person in the Trinity, — 
not as a sacrifice to appease the Almighty; but as 
our elder and greater Brother, in whom the Divine 
life of the Father was most fully manifested; our 
Teacher, Leader and Inspiration. I commend to 
you his spirit and his principles, — a love like his 
in the heart; a life like his in the world. This is 
the road from hell to heaven. 



IX. 
THE DIVINE FORGIVENESS. 

[Sunday Evening, October 26, 1890.] 

"For thou desirest not sacrifice, else would I give 
it: Thou delightest not in burnt offering. The sac- 
rifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and 
contrite heart, God, thou wilt not despise!' — 
Psalm 51: 16, 17. 

Last Sunday evening I spoke upon the subject of 
Penalty, endeavoring to show by what laws human 
transgressions are visited with divine justice. I 
trust that if any were present who thought that, in 
this church, we do not believe in suffering for sin, 
they were then undeceived. Surely I gave them 
an opportunity of learning the truth upon that sub- 
ject. No church holds more strenuously to the 
belief that every transgression and disobedience 
shall receive a just recompense of reward, — that 
"Whatsoever a man soweth,that shall he also reap." 

To-night we take up the other half of the theme, 
the Divine Forgiveness. Our song shall be of 
"Judgment and Mercy." 

The cry of the soul in all generations has been, 
"Blot out my transgressions and remember mine 
iniquities no more." In the old legend the organ 
sunk in the sea still sent its plaintive music over 



158 JUSTICE AND MERCY. 

the billows and through the storms. Humanity, 
sunk in wretchedness and guilt, lifts its prayer for 
pardon over every wave of sorrow, and makes it 
heard through every tempest of life. All this in- 
dicates some real need in the human heart and 
demands some real comfort. It calls for an assur- 
ance that the Great Being behind us and above us 
is wise and loving; that he will make an end of sin 
and pain; that he will change the cry for mercy 
into a song of peace. 

I. Although there is a genuine necessity for 
such assurance, many superstitious notions are still 
entertained about the idea of God's forgiveness. 
There is clay with the gold. 

It is a mistake to suppose that God is altogether 
such an one as we are. He is not a magnified 
man. We, indeed, interpret him through our 
higher nature, through our best and purest affec- 
tions and aspirations; but the trouble is that men 
have always attributed to him the lower rather 
than the higher elements. They have thought him 
capable of hatred and vengeance. They have at- 
tached to him their baser passions as well as their 
virtues. Even in Judaism, in its early stages, God 
is represented as having all the savagery of primi- 
tive man. He delights to exercise brute force. 
He disports himself in cruelties. He orders most 
shocking barbarities. He perpetrates crimes that 
fill us with horror, since Jesus prayed for his mur- 



THE DIVINE FORGIVENESS. 159 

derers. The mistake was natural enough, but it 
was a mistake. When a certain painter set up his 
masterpiece in the market-place, inviting the peo- 
ple to criticise, and to mark with a brush the fea- 
tures that they deemed capable of improvement, 
he found at the close of the day that his beautiful 
picture was covered and besmirched with blotches 
of paint. So do men take the brush, dip it into 
the mud and slime and ichor of their own bad pas- 
sions, and daub the fairest conceptions of God, 
the benignant face of the Eternal. 

"Not mine to look where cherubim 
And seraph may not see; 
But nothing can be good in him 
That evil is in me. 

"The wrong that pains my Lord below 
I dare not throne above; 
I know not of his hate, I know 
His goodness and his love." 

It follows, therefore, that there are certain dif- 
ferences between divine and human forgiveness. 
When a man truly forgives his brother, what does 
he do? 

( i ) He withholds the infliction of any penalty. 
He forbears vengeance. He does not meet evil 
with evil, sword with sword, fire with fire. He 
says, "I will not strike the blow to which I am 
prompted; go in peace." But the divine forgive- 
ness does not set aside guilt or remove penalty. 
It will always be true that we have sinned. No 
power can make that otherwise. No power can 
wipe out the guilt that attaches or the suffering 



160 JUSTICE AND MERCY. 

that follows. Absolute justice will be done. We 
ought not to wish it otherwise. We ought not to 
wish justice defeated or law reversed. 

(2) What else does the man do who forgives 
his brother? He roots out of his heart all wrong 
feelings, all those sentiments out of which actual 
vengeance springs. He not only says, "I will 
strike no blow," but he also says, "I will cherish 
no malignant or bitter spirit." He scatters the 
clouds before the bolt descends. But there is no 
anger in God such as rages in the breasts of men. 
We speak only by accommodation when we say 
that God is angry. His opinion of sin, his dis- 
pleasure with wrong-doing, is expressed in his 
laws, and in the consequences that follow their 
violation, but he does not fly into a fury when 
some one goes astray. He does not fume and 
rage as men do. 

(3) When a man forgives his brother he re- 
stores, so far as possible, the broken relationship. 
He binds together the severed ties. He opens 
his arms and says to the offender, "Return; it shall 
be as if no chasm had ever yawned between us. 
I shall feel and act toward you as of old." But 
so far as God is concerned there is no broken re- 
lationship to be restored. He does not need to 
be reconciled to us; but we who have gone astray, 
to him. The work of Christ was not to reconcile 
God to man, but man to God. It is significant 



THE DIVINE FORGIVENESS. 161 

that the word "atonement" is used in the King 
James version of the New Testament but once, 
and in the Revision not at all. The word "recon- 
ciliation" is substituted. 

This word gives the key-note to the entire mis- 
sion of Jesus Christ. His was a work of "recon- 
ciliation." He came to break down the barriers 
between man and God, and between man and his 
brother. The atonement was not upon Calvary, 
but in the human heart. That was to be reconciled 
to a life of righteousness. This idea is kept con- 
stantly before us in the New Testament. "For if 
when we were enemies, we were reconciled unto 
God by the death of his Son, much more, 
being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life" — 
that is, by leading such a life as his. Such a life 
is salvation. "God was in Christ reconciling the 
world unto himself," — not himself unto the world. 
"He is our peace who hath made both one," — 
speaking of Jews and Gentiles — "and hath broken 
down the middle wall of partition between us." 
"That he might reconcile both unto God in one 
body, by the cross, having slain the enmity there- 
by" — the enmity existing between Jews and Gen- 
tiles, and between both and God. 

This was the central thought, — this was the idea 

underlying the entire work. The mission of Jesus 

looked manward rather than Godw'ard. There 

was no flaming Deity to propitiate; no wrath to 
11 



162 JUSTICE AND MERCY. 

be quenched in blood. But there were human 
hearts to be turned from sin to righteousness. 
Wanderers were to be led to the way from which 
they had strayed, prodigals were to be brought 
back to the homes they had deserted, lost sheep 
in the wilderness were to be found and borne to 
the fold. This was his mission. "The Son of 
man is come to seek and to save that which was 
lost." "I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto 
me." I will draw them from their sins into a life 
like mine, to a life in harmony with the will of 
God". 

II. We may now say, in general, that the Di- 
vine Forgiveness is the expression, in ten thou- 
sand ways, of those feelings of goodness and 
mercy on the part of God which seek, not the 
remisson of penalty, but the restoration of the trans- 
gressor. 

Let us carry out this idea in some of its de- 
tails. 

i. Forgiveness is not the cessation of God's 
wrath, which never began, which demanded no sac- 
rifice of the blood of his best beloved Son before 
he could look with compassion upon the rest of his 
children; but it is the removal of those things in 
human character and conduct which make men 
look for wrath and expect it. We look upon the 
moon at night and sometimes see a dusky red 
shadow creeping across its shining face. What is 



THE DIVINE FORGIVENESS. 163 

the matter? Is the moon becoming dark? Not 
so. The earth has gotten between the sun and 
the moon, and it is the shadow of the earth that is 
cast upon the fair countenance of the evening 
planet. Men think sometimes that they behold 
darkness upon the radiant brow of our Father in 
heaven. But it is not so. The frown of God is 
the shadow of human guilt. Remove the evil 
from man's heart, and he will no longer fancy 
that there is disturbance in the skies. 

2. Forgiveness is not the rescinding of punish- 
ment; it is deliverance from sin. Penalty itself is 
administered in love. It is one of those forces by 
which we are finally purified. 

It has been well said: "Zeal and repentance 
are the peculiar exercises of the heart that should 
flow from the knowledge that God chastens in love. 
Who does not see that this view of God and his 
government is alone calculated to produce a pure 
and wholesome zeal in the service of God? Go, 
look at the cringing slave who is driven to the per- 
formance of his task with the lash, and is there 
any zeal there in the service of the master? Servile 
obedience there may be; but pure zeal is not the 
offspring of such causes as these. So of repent- 
ance: it is a willing and heartfelt turning from sin, 
and ought never to be confounded with the forced 
and outward obedience of the slave. The man 
who steals and is detected and punished with the 



164 JUSTICE AND MERCY. 

rigor of the law may be sorry that he stole; but 
his sorrow will proceed from his dread of punish- 
ment, and not from hatred of the crime itself 
But when a man feels that the punishment pro- 
ceeds from the love of a friend, then he sees in the 
fact that he is punished the truth that sin itself is 
a deadly and bitter thing from which his friend 
would save him; and he loathes the sin itself; and 
turns from it with a full purpose of heart. Wrath 
may freeze the soul and cause it to cower down 
afraid. It may even restrain and deter from out- 
breaking sin, but it can never touch the heart." 

3. Forgiveness is not the restoration of a lost 
relationship, but the assurance that the relationship 
never was broken on the part of God. 

What an expression is this: "God who loved 
us when we were dead in sins!" The most difficult 
thing of all is to realize this love, a love that is 
older than the hills and new as the last sunbeam 
that kissed them. 

"Even in our sins:" is that impossible? Are 
there any analogies in human life? 

Here is a young man whose parents are poor; 
but they are determined that he shall have an 
education. They toil and save, they deny them- 
selves even the necessities of life that he may be 
sent to college. What hopes they build upon 
him! What rosy visions of his future rise before 
him! His success will more than repay them for 



THE DIVINE FORGIVENESS. 165 

all their self-denial. So they toil on, their hands 
growing harder, the lines in their faces deeper. 
They toil on, the meals upon their table becoming 
scantier, that more of their little earnings may be 
sent to him. By and by they are plunged into 
thick darkness. The boy of their pride, the son 
of their hopes, comes home disgraced, dismissed 
from college. With slow, humiliated step, with 
shame upon his downcast face, he comes up the 
pathway to the old house, down which he had 
walked so proudly a year before! What reception 
will he meet? Will the door be closed? Will he 
be turned away? No more than the prodigal was 
turned away when he came back from the swine- 
fields! Sorrowing hearts, but still loving ones, 
await him. They cling to him, they bring him to 
repentance, they intercede for him, they plead that 
he may have another chance. 

It is related by George Dawson that a painter 
named Romney, a Kendal man, in his youth, with 
the consent of his wife, went up to London to 
seek his fortune. When he got there, without 
any wrong intention at first, it happened that he 
did not say anything about being married. By 
degrees that man got on; he became rich and 
fashionable, was courted as a great painter, and 
lived in Cavendish square or some aristocratic 
region of that kind. For forty years that man 
lived in London, and during that forty years he 



166 JUSTICE AND MERCY. 

never went back to Kendal once, nor did his wife 
see him. During the first years traveling was not 
easy, and there was an excuse for him; but by and 
by when the means came, the will was gone. He 
never went back once; he never wrote to that 
faithful woman once; he never saw her once. O 
Prodigal! He had no thought for the fond heart 
and the true soul at home. Surely he was the 
meanest of men! At the end of forty years, sick- 
ness came; the body failed; madness overtook him 
and then, broken in body, diseased in brain, 
stricken, smitten, driven home by calamity, and 
not by penitence, back went the wretch to his 
wife. And what did the woman do? Did she 
shut the door and say, "Too late?" She might 
have used these words, and who could have 
blamed her? But not she. 

She took the man in. She waited on his dying 
hours; she nursed him tenderly; she watched the 
fast-ebbing brain; she closed his dying eyes; she 
laid him in his grave; she did all this, and gave 
him no word of reproach. In the history of man's 
meanness there is no meaner chapter. In the his- 
tory of woman's glory there is no more glorious 
page. Has not He who has put such power of 
forgiveness into a human heart everything to at- 
tract us in himself? 

Our Father in heaven, art thou worse than thy 
children? "God who loved us even when we were 
dead in sins." 



THE DIVINE FORGIVENESS. 167 

And in a thousand ways that love is manifested, 
It sets before us ideals of character, and inspires 
to strive for their realization. It aims to touch 
our hearts by the unnumbered blessings of every 
day. It constantly appeals to our higher nature. 

"The forgiveness of God," says J. Vila Blake, 
"is a pursuing love, never tired, never uncertain, 
unsteadfast, backward or unresolved, always per- 
fect, present, unswerved. Look at all things. See 
how pityingly events are ordered for our weak- 
ness; how they stoop to us when we fall; how 
tenderly the order of God takes up his children 
and leads them; how the flowers spring up before 
and behind, and love shines on the path. What 
helps, what incitements, invitations! What warn- 
ings, admonitions, exhortations! How our wan- 
derings are followed by calls and penalties inward 
and outward, till we turn again to the light which 
never was turned from us! Look at these things 
till we know the forgiveness of God, the eternal 
forgiveness, and learn that never his face was 
averted, but ours was turned away." 

There is a story in Lamertine of a nest full of 
young birds, whose supporting tree was torn away 
by an angry torrent and swept down the mad 
stream. The mother bird flew along beside the 
rushing waves that were bearing her nestlings to 
destruction, crying after them in plaintive, piteous 
notes, until at a bend in the stream, the tree be- 



168 JUSTICE AND MERCY. 

came lodged, and she darted into the nest to find 
her young birds safe. So does the voice of the 
divine love pursue all who are carried along on 
the swift stream of life. 

This is our conception of the Divine Forgive- 
ness. 

When the forgiveness of God overtakes us, it 
imparts a forgiving spirit to us. This is the test 
that we have become reconciled to him, that we 
are reconciled to our brother also. We lose the 
desire to take our fellows by the throat, saying, 
"Pay me what thou owest!" When we feel that 
we are forgiven, we are ready to forgive. 

This evening closes the series of sermons I be- 
gan some weeks ago. I am not given, as you all 
know, to over-much exhortation; but the subject 
of this evening concerns us all. It is for us to re- 
spond to the touch of the divine hand. It is for us to 
open our hearts that we may receive the trans- 
forming influence. "To-day, if ye will hear his 
voice, harden not your hearts." A poor woman 
whose only daughter had wandered from her 
home, went to Dr. Bernardo, the worker among 
the London slums, and asked his help to find and 
restore her. He asked for a photograph of the 
girl, had several copies made, wrote upon each the 
words, "Come home," and placed them where 
they would be most likely to meet the eyes of the 
erring child. She would know by those words 



THE DIVINE FORGIVENESS. 169 

that she was still loved, and that forgiveness was 
awaiting her. You know that there are many of 
the old watch-words of religion that I cannot utter; 
many of the old ideas that I do no believe. But 
it is with all sincerity that I say to-night to any 
who may have strayed from paths of righteous- 
ness, the voice of God is calling after you in all 
your wanderings, "Come home; O come home," — 
home to your forsaken allegiance, home to your 
neglected duties, home to purity and peace and 
faith and lovel 



X. 

THE DAY OF JUDGMENT. 

[Sunday Evening, April 23, 1893.] 

"Thou treasure st up for thyself wrath in the day of 
wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God, 
who will render to every man accordi?ig to his works." 
— Rom. 2: 5, 6. 

The ideas of judgment that have, for a long time, 
held sway, and that even yet linger in many minds, 
may be summed up in this wise: The day is ap- 
proaching (some say that it is near, and some that 
it is yet remote in the future) when the sound of the 
great trumpet shall break upon the ears of a star- 
tled world, and when the terrified nations lift their 
eyes upward they shall behold the returning form 
of Christ. Angels will be his heralds and clouds 
his chariot. The blast of that trumpet will pierce 
the u dul[, cold ear of death;" and those who have 
slept for ages in the earth will find their bodies 
miraculously restored. Soul and body will be 
united, and the entire man, as he was in the days 
of the flesh, will come forth from the tomb. The 
King will set up his throne, and those who are 
raised from the dead, as well as those who are alive 
at his coming, must stand before that throne to 
receive their final award or sentence. The right- 



THE DA Y OF JUDGMENT. 171 

eous will return with him to the skies and enter 
into life; the wicked will be sentenced to unend- 
ing destruction. Thus closes the great drama of 
human history, and the world, the stage upon 
which it was enacted, will be reduced to ashes. 

I. This was the old conception of judgment. 
While it still lingers, it does not, for various 
reasons, hold over human thought its original 
sway. 

( i) First, men began to doubt whether the de- 
cisions of that day — supposing it to come in the 
form and manner described — were to be absolutely 
final. They began to doubt that, in the case of 
wicked persons, there was never to be another op- 
portunity for repentance. This doubt has grown, 
has indeed become transformed into a belief in the 
possibility of restoration, — a belief that in the 
minds of multitudes of Christians in all denomina- 
tions, now holds an important place. 

(2) Then, too, when men began to question 
the finality of the decision, it was not long before 
they began to ask whether there was to be a future 
judgment at all, — whether there was any sense in 
which sentence against an evil work, under the Di- 
vine administration, could be said to be delayed. 
They studied more closely those laws of retribu- 
tion that are ceaselessly in process of execution, 
and saw that here and now was judgment taking 
place. 



172 JUSTICE AND MERCY. 

(3) The wonder arose also, why it was neces- 
sary to dig from the grave the old body that had 
been mouldering for ages after the soul had taken 
its departure. So with the vanishing of the notion 
of a future judgment, the idea of a bodily resur- 
rection has also been gradually fading. Perhaps 
the strong improbability, — even the absurdity, — 
of such. a resurrection, did much to obliterate the 
belief of a future judgment. 

2. On the other hand, while it is true that judg- 
ment is going on forever, that every day is a day 
of reckoning, that no sin is committed which is 
not instantly avenged, yet there are certain para- 
bles and expressions of Jesus that certainly seem 
to indicate something more. I do not mean to 
intimate that he even remotely taught such a fu- 
ture general judgment as that I have described; 
but that the silent and ceaseless processes of retributio?i 
bring crises in the histories of7iations a?id the lives 0/ 
individuals', there are times when the seeds of 
iniquity produce harvests. There are times when 
the wheat and the tares growing together through 
the entire season in one field are separated and the 
tares gathered into bundles and burned. There 
are times when the goats and the sheep that for 
many days have fed undisturbed upon the same 
pasture are divided, the goats upon the left hand, 
the sheep upon the right. There are times when 
the fish in the seas, good and bad playing in com- 



THE DA Y OF JUDGMENT. 173 

mon waters, are drawn out in the fisher's net and 
sorted, — the good being placed in vessels for use, 
the bad thrown away. In such passages it is taught 
that while judgment goes on forever, there are times 
when it reaches its culmination. 

3. The text I have selected from Paul contains 
and expresses both ideas. He says to the wicked: 
You are treasuring up wrath by every sin that you 
commit, unto the day of wrath. You may not be 
aware of it now. You may think that your trans- 
gressions will bear no evil fruit; that they will 
leave no marks upon your characters; but the day 
is coming when the results of what is now going 
on will be revealed. A crisis is certain. That 
crisis will be a day of the revelation of the right- 
eous judgment of God, — a day when you will real- 
ize what has been going on through years of in- 
iquity, — when you will know by the strong and 
sudden agony, that the avenging angel never 
missed a retributive stroke! 

In this text we find the harmony of both con- 
ceptions. There is judgment now and always. 
It is not understood. Men do not at first see the 
consequences of their acts, but crises come in life 
which bring the revelation or manifestation of that 
wh'ich is forever going forward. Here we find 
also the meaning of that phrase so constantly re- 
curring which, in the old version is translated 
"End of the world," but in the new, "End of the 



174 JUSTICE AND MERCY. 

age." It means the rounding up of a period of 
time, the completion of an epoch in the career of 
a nation or an individual. It does not contain the 
idea of absolute finality. It is the close of any 
season which has been required for the germs of 
good or evil to unfold themselves. 

I. Let us first of all consider the lan- 
guage OF SCRIPTURE THAT HAS GIVEN RISE TO 
THE OLD VIEWS CONCERNING JUDGMENT. 

I. If we are to understand the language of 
either the New Testament or the Old, we must 
transport ourselves back to the time in which they 
were written. 

We must know something about the country, 
the face of nature, and even the climate. These 
are all sources of imagery. We must acquaint 
ourselves with the customs, the habits of thought 
of the people. We must know something about 
the forces at work to shape the national life. We 
must put ourselves just as far as possible where 
the writers stood, think as they thought, see as 
they saw, express ourselves as they did. We 
must understand the sources of their imagery. 
The great difficulty with all our interpretations of 
Scripture is, that we have neglected this simple 
principle, and have conceived of these writers as 
speaking according to modern methods and in 
modern terms. We have subjected them to the 
rules of to-day, have applied to them the canons 



THE DA Y OF JUDGMENT. 175 

of the Occident; and hence, while our systems 
have been more or less logical, they have at the 
same time been unreal and artificial. We might 
just as well clothe those men in the costumes of 
today, as demand that their language be tested by 
rules of speech we have brought out for a state of 
society and schools of thought so thoroughly 
unlike. In Christ's teachings concerning judg- 
ment, he uses the language that the prophets of 
the nation before him had employed. The drapery 
of all his instruction is simply that which he found 
ready made, — that with which many centuries had 
familiarized the popular mind. He spoke to the 
people in terms they could readily understand, 
terms that through all the past had been charged 
with similar messages. 

2. How did the prophets form their vocabulary ? 
What elements entered into the image of their 
preaching? Particularly from what sources were 
their ideas of retribution and judgment derived? 

(i) From conceptions of the universe very dif- 
ferent from ours. 

In remote ages there was no such thing as we 
understand by exact science. People regarded 
the earth as flat, as having foundations under it, as 
raised upon pillars. When an earthquake occurred, 
they said, the pillars of the earth are shaken, and they 
supposed that God had shaken them in his wrath. 
They conceived of the firmament as solid, the stars 



176 JUSTICE AND MERCY. 

fastened to it. When a shower of meteors occurred 
they said the stars were falling like the leaves of 
autumn, and they were filled with fear. When 
an eclipse covered the face of the sun, it seemed 
to them like the frown of Jehovah. The sun was 
turned into darkness. When the shadow crept 
over the moon, its dusky red suggested to them 
that the moon had been turned into blood. 
Through all these natural phenomena, they 
imagined God's displeasure expressing itself. And 
so many people, in later centuries, have supposed 
that they must look for a day when the sun will 
be literally blotted out, the moon turned to blood, 
the stars go aimlessly crashing through space and 
the physical globe be destroyed. 

(2) There are other sources of imagery from 
which the prophets drew,— notably the customs of 
their monarchs. 

Hence came the heralds, their chariots, their 
trumpets. When the people of a city were to be 
gathered, an alarm was sounded upon a trumpet. 
When a hostile army approached, the voice of the 
trumpet was lifted up beneath the walls calling 
upon the people to surrender or warning them that 
siege would be laid to their city. So the 
trumpet became to them a symbol of judgment. 
They took that trumpet and put it into the hands 
of Jehovah, and when they spoke of judgment as 
about to fall upon a city, they spoke of God as 



THE DA YOF JUDGMENT. Ill 

coming with the sound of a trumpet. Their 
natural imagery and their royal imagery were used 
in the same passages and for the same purpose. 
Thus were prepared the molds into which all their 
thoughts upon these subjects was cast. The molds 
survived and were used in the time of Christ as 
well as in the time of the prophets; but none of 
this symbolism was ever used to signify the actual 
destruction of the physical universe. 

3. Examples of these figures are found upon 
almost every page of the prophets. When Isaiah 
predicts calamity for Babylon, he declares that 
"the stars of heaven and the constellations thereof 
shall not give their light; the sun shall be darkened 
in his going forth, and the moon shall not cause 
her light to shine." He represents God as saying, 
"Therefore I will shake the heavens, and the earth 
shall remove out of her place, in the wrath of the 
Lord of hosts, and in the day of his fierce anger." 
In describing the earlier destruction of Jerusalem, 
the prophet says: "The foundations of the earth 
do shake, * * the moon shall be confounded and 
the sun ashamed." Judgment upon Idumea is 
thus set forth: "And all the host of heaven shall 
be dissolved, and the heavens shall be rolled to- 
gether as a scroll; and all their host shall fall down, 
as the leaf falleth off from the vine, and as a fall- 
ing leaf from the fig-tree." The prophet Joel, in 
denouncing a plague of locusts upon Palestine, 

12 



178 JUSTICE AND MERCY. 

exclaims: — "Blow ye the trumpet in Zion, and 
sound an alarm in my holy mountain; let the in- 
habitants of the land tremble; for the day of the 
Lord cometh, for it is nigh at hand, — a day of 
darkness and of gloominess, a day of clouds and 
of thick darkness. * * There hath not been ever 
the like, neither shall be any more after it, even 
to the years of many generations. * * The earth 
shall quake before them ; the heavens shall tremble ; 
the sun and moon shall be dark, and the stars 
shall withdraw their shining. * * The sun shall 
be turned into darkness and the moon into blood, 
before the great and terrible day of the Lord 
come." Zechariah, speaking of another calamity 
says: "The Lord God shall blow the trumpet, 
and shall go with the whirlwinds of the south." 

These passages are sufficient to show us how 
the imagery that is found in the New Testament 
when Christ speaks of judgment, is the common 
property of the Jewish prophets. In no case does 
it refer to an absolute destruction of the physical 
universe. It was, indeed, originally drawn from 
natural phenomena in which the wrath of Jehovah 
was supposed to be manifested; and so at last 
came to be used whenever that wrath was spoken 
of — without reference to derivation. In like 
manner, the rhetoric suggested by royalty and 
applied to Jehovah and his dealings with men, re- 
mained after its original associations had been far 



THE DA Y OF JUDGMENT. 179 

removed into the background. So the "great 
trumpet," said to announce the coming of the 
Lord to judgment, was in the messages of warning, 
— although the prophet, in later days, might not 
have connected it with the progress of a monarch 
or the approach of a devastating army. 

Let us now open the New Testament to one or 
two passages in which Christ uses similar lan- 
guage. On a certain day as he and his disciples 
stood upon the slopes of Olivet, looking upon the 
temple and the beautiful city, he told them that 
there should not remain one stone upon another 
that should not be thrown down. When they 
asked Him what should be the sign of that coming 
to judgment and of the end of the age, he replied: 
"Immediately after the tribulation of those days 
shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not 
give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, 
and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken: 
and then shall appear the sign of the Son of Man 
in heaven. * * And he shall send his angels 
with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall 
gather together His elect from the four winds, 
from one end of heaven to the other." What rea- 
son is there for giving these words in the mouth 
of Christ a different interpretation from that 
which they must have in the mouth of the proph- 
ets? The language is the same. It is the common 
description of the judgment. Many people think 



180 JUSTICE AND MERCY. 

that they find here a prediction of the destruction 
of the world as well as of Jerusalem. There is no 
reason, however, for believing that more than one 
event is intended. Nor is there any stronger reason 
for believing that the dissolution of the world is 
predicted in that other passage where he speaks of 
the Son of Man coming with the holy angels to 
gather the nations before him for judgment. As in 
the one case it was a special crisis in the history 
of Jerusalem that he meant, so in this case he is 
giving a general assurance that there are crises in 
the history of all nations and in the lives of all 
individuals. Those crises are brought about by 
injustice in the one and by selfishness in the 
other. To this principle we may refer all his other 
parables which speak of the end of the age and 
the coming of the Judge. There will be a round- 
ing up, a completion, an epoch that culminates in 
retribution. The stream of iniquity comes at last 
to a precipice over which it inevitably falls; a 
fiery harvest awaits every sowing of tares. 
Thoughtlessly, unconsciously, men and nations, 
without suffering apparent detriment for a long 
time, may treasure up wrath against the day of 
wrath; but the revelation of God's righteous judg- 
ment is sure to come! They that sow to the flesh 
shall finally of the flesh reap corruption; they 
that sow to the wiud shall reap the whirlwind! 
II. This is the principle upon which the 



THE DA V OF JUDGMENT. 18l 

WORDS CONCERNING JUDGMENT ARE TO BE INTER- 
PRETED. Let us now make the application. 

We shall not be obliged to go very far to find 
it. Instances abound. 

I. We shall find it in the history of nations. We 
saw it a quarter of a century ago in our own 
country. For years the injustice of slavery had 
been practiced. Men thought it was profitable. 
They grew rich and prosperous upon the product 
of unpaid toil. It was thought to be an essential 
factor of national life. Grave divines in the pulpit 
graced it with texts. It was defended by states- 
men in the halls of legislation. They did not per- 
ceive its baleful effects upon the society in which 
it was practiced. But judgment was constantly, 
going on. The silent laws of nature were record- 
ing themselves with infallible precision At last 
the crisis came. The civil war was a revelation 
of the judgment of God against the evils which 
tor more than a century had been treasuring up 
wrath. The sign of the Judge at last appeared in 
the heavens. The angels of destruction went 
forth. In that whirling and tossing midnight 
the sun was turned into darkness. 

The same thing happened in France a hundred 
years ago. Priests and princes, for centuries, had 
kept the common people in ignorance, had trod- 
den them under heels of iron. The laws of retri- 



182 JUSTICE AND MERCY. 

bution were at work. They did not manifest 
themselves for a long time; but in that terrific 
carnival of blood and fire, known as the French 
Revolution, there was a revelation of the righteous 
judgment of God. The moon was turned into 
blood. 

The same principle will be applied in the case 
of Russia some day. It is working itself out. The 
throne is treasuring up wrath against the day of 
wrath. In banishing the brains, and trampling 
upon the muscles of the people, in driving out and 
oppressing the Jews,— the storm is gathering that 
must one day fall. The time will come when the 
words of the prophet will be applied to Russia as 
they were to Babylon and Edom: The sun shall 
be turned into darkness, the moon into blood. 
The stars shall fall from heaven and the very pil- 
lars of the earth shall be shaken. Judgment may 
be delayed; but the chariot of the Judge will 
come. 

"In dream I saw a despot throned; and lo! 
Beneath his throne there grew a grievous pit 
That, yawning slowly, 'gan engulfing it; 
All trembling then the sceptered imp cried, 'Ho! 
Give help!' An army flew and from that woe 
Redeeming, set him on a marble plain; 
But see, the marble yields! Their help was vain; 
He sinks and 'vengeful floods around him flow; 
Then up an Alp they bear him, plant him high 
And boast, 'Thy throne this granite will uphold 
And make thee king, companion of the sky, 



THE DA V OF JUDGMENT. 1 83 

* Making thy splendors with the morning's gold.' 
The crag's a crater's throat while yet they cry, 
And the stern fates their lawful prey enfold." 

2. We carry this principle into the life of the indi- 
vidual. 

A man may sin for years undetected, free from 
penalty, it seems, but the processes of retribution 
going on quietly in the soul will assuredly bring 
the day of judgment in that man's life. Insecure 
foundations and dishonest work upon a house 
will finally cause its downfall. The sting of tiny 
insects in a tree may pass unnoticed for a summer, 
but when the sunshine calls for the leaves again, 
the tree will be dead. It is so in any man's char- 
acter and career. 

For a long time Tweed and his ring ruled ini- 
quitously in New York City. Men envied them. 
Those who had to toil for their daily bread, who 
were condemned to lives of poverty, looking upon 
them said: "There is no such thing as justice. 
These men are utterly corrupt. They steal, swin- 
dle and squander; but see how prosperous they 
are! No judgment hangs over them. It is false 
to say that men can not sin and be happy!" And 
yet, judgment was going on, tho' the outward eye 
saw it not. Tweed and his companions were sow- 
ing sin and they reaped retribution; they were 
sowing fire and brimstone and hell was their har- 
vest, — the hell of downfall, prison, exile, death! 



184 JUSTICE AND MERCY. 

The judgment that was going perpetually on was 
at last revealed. David says: "I have seen the 
wicked in great power, and spreading himself like 
a green bay tree; but he passed away, and lo! he 
was not — yea, I sought him but he could not be 
found." 

But we need not seek remote examples. Is not 
the application of this truth seen by incidents that 
come to light every day? Men who have lived 
dishonorably for years, suddenly find that they 
have been treasuring up wrath against a day of 
wrath. Their secret iniquities, which they sup- 
posed would never come to light, have suddenly 
been revealed in the righteous judgment of God. 
A flash of avenging lightning has suddenly cleft 
the darkness that shrouded the life of sin. It is 
so with any evil habit. Sow the deed and you 
reap the habit; sow the habit, and you reap the 
character. Trifle with conscience, and you are 
but whetting the sword for the final plunge. Treat 
your minor sins, as you may call them, thought- 
lessly or with levity; but they are crystalizing into 
settled iniquity. The laws of retribution go on, 
and before you know it, you are bound hand and 
foot by that which you would have looked upon 
with loathing at first. 

A young man who, when he came to the city 
from the home of his childhood, would have 
scorned and loathed and detested associates whom 



THE DA Y OF JUDGMENT. 185 

he could not introduce to his mother or sisters, 
allows himself to be drawn little by little into their 
society, — becomes gradually accustomed to foul 
words which issue like pestilence from their pol- 
luted lips, — accustomed to fouler deeds, until 
finally the revelation comes to him, "The whole 
course of my life has been changed! The things 
that once I hated now I love!" How have the 
stars been falling from his heaven; how have the 
foundations of the earth been shaken! 

Another one allows himself to be drawn into a 
saloon — just for good fellowship. He takes his 
glass with the rest. He soon goes in again and 
takes another. The tendency strengthens. By 
and by he has to be helped home to his lodgings. 
He tumbles undressed upon his bed, and sleeps 
for the first time the sleep of the stupidly drunken. 
When consciousness begins to dawn, the morning 
has long been looking in at his window. When 
he wakes enough to recall the debauch of the 
night — he might well exclaim in the agony of that 
awful revelation — the revelation of what has really 
been going on for weeks and months: "My sun 
has been turned into darkness, my fair moon drips 
blood and the stars of my glory have dropped 
from the sky!" 

Another one allows himself to play for money — 
"just enough to make the game interesting!" At 
last he seeks the cage of the "tiger" night after 



186 JUSTICE AND MERCY. 

night; loses, takes money from his employer — 
expecting to win and pay it back again — loses, 
takes more. At last discovery, arrest, disgrace, 
the penitentiary! For all such lives the symbols 
of judgment used by the prophets of old may 
forcibly describe their doom and downfall. 

Let us heed the lesson. Judgment goes on for- 
ever, but there are crises of judgment as well. 
There is a Day of Judgment! It may be put off, 
but it will come! I do not try to frighten you 
with the future world. I have no horrors of the 
pit wherewith to move you. But the present, the 
present! It is to-day that we must heed, if we 
would not fear to-morrow. Forsake now — this 
moment — the sin, the crookedness, the evil habit, 
the secret iniquity. There is no refuge from the 
doom of to-morrow but the repentance of to-day. 
Seek all that is noble. Seek the good. Seek 
every influence that will lift up and strengthen! 
Seek the inspiration of that wonderful life which 
triumphed over temptation — that life which shows 
what is possible for you and for me! The same 
God will help; the same hope is before us. There 
are many voices that once spoke, but now are 
silent. But there is one voice whose words come 
to us to-day like the sound of a bugle on the air 
of the centuries; a sound that floats over the 
graves of the mighty and the wrecks of empires, 
filling the hearts of the tempted and tried: "Be 
of good cheer. I have overcome the world'" 



xi. 

THE UNPARDONABLE SIN. 

[Sunday Evening, April 12, 1893.] 

"And whosoever shall speak a word against the 
Son of Man, it shall be forgiven him; btit whosoever 
shall speak against the Holy Spirit, it shall not be 
forgive?i hi?n, neither in tlm world, nor i?i that which 
is to corned — Matt. 12:32. 

The subject of the unpardonable sin keeps com- 
ing up ever and anon, sometimes in one shape and 
sometimes in another; now in the fervid appeal 
of a revivalist, again in the solemn title of a tract, 
or the sober heading of a review; anon in the tri- 
umphant shout of a preacher who fancies that 
here at least he has an argument against the final 
salvation of all, that here is a mountain-peak over 
which the ocean of infinite love shall never pre- 
vail. This is the last refuge of those who cling to 
the old theology on the subject of destiny. In 
this fortress they make their final stand. 

I have a reason for this present discussion. 
This subject is sometimes pressed upon our atten- 
tion by the unhinging of an intellect or the settled 
melancholy of a sensitive heart. A note was 
handed up in this pulpit, not long ago, from some 
one evidently sincere and evidently in great 



188 JUSTICE AND MERCY. 

trouble, asking for light upon the theme before us. 
When I say that the paper upon which that note 
was written was heavily bordered with black, you 
will understand that the request was probably 
born of a personal bereavement; that the writer 
may have been trembling for the fate of some one 
who had passed to the other world under the sup- 
posed shadow of this awful imprecation. I trust, 
therefore, that those who do not need my words 
will kindly believe that they are not superfluous. 
While this discourse may seem to some like apply- 
ing the flail anew to chaff that has been already 
well threshed, there are others who will be glad of 
any grains of comfort the process may reveal. 

Let it be conceded at once that the subject has 
its difficulties. It is not an easy one. If I fail in 
my explanation,* I shall fail in good company. I 
shall not stand a solitary monument of exegetical 
disaster. Let me premise, however, that what is 
told us of this sin, which stands apparently excep- 
tional in the realm of transgression, ought to be 
interpreted in the light of the universal promises 
and world-wide hope of the gospel. Whatever 
may be meant, however desperate the depravity 
described, however severe the penalty threatened, 
let us be sure that it does not mean to map out a 
small territory which the divine compassion can 
never conquer, for "all things shall be subdued 
unto Him." It cannot mean that there shall be 



THE UNPARDONABLE SIN. 189 

some subjects so rebellious that they will never 
yield; for "every knee shall bow of things in 
heaven and things on earth, and things under the 
earth." It cannot mean that some voices will be 
finally silent in the grand ascription of praise; for 
"every created thing which is in heaven and on 
the earth and under the earth, and in the sea, 
heard I saying, Unto him that sitteth upon the 
throne, be the blessing and the honor and the 
glory and the dominion." 

If you walk out into the woods in the early 
spring, you will often find upon the north side of 
the trees and in secluded places little patches of 
snow and ice. Everywhere else the traces of 
winter are melting away and running in tiny 
streams to the brooks and from the brooks into 
the Mississippi. You say, "Well, the sun's work 
is not all done yet; he will have a hard task to get 
around all these trees and into all these crevices, 
and he may not be able to shine upon some of this 
snow and ice powerfully enough to affect it." But 
do not fear for the sun. Come out again in a week 
or two. Where are now your stubborn and in- 
corrigible relics of December? The sun has found 
them and the great stream is bearing their little 
tribute on its mighty tide to the gulf. You 
must learn to interpret nature in the light of sum- 
mer. You must interpret the vestiges of winter 
that you see in the early spring by the undisputed 



190 JUSTICE AND MERCY. 

power of the sun. So must we interpret the ex- 
ceptionally persistent cases of iniquity that we 
find mentioned in Scripture, in the light of its re- 
iterated, emphatic and sweeping assertions of the 
omnipotence of divine love. That sun will at last 
melt the most frozen heart. 

i. There are three versions of the incident 
from which the phrase "unpardonable sin" is 
drawn. These differ widely in detail. The account 
in Luke is wholly different from that in Matthew 
and Mark. 

While these failures to agree upon circumstances 
of time and place discredit the infallibility of the 
memories of those who wrote, the accounts give 
evidence that some such words as those which 
stand at the head of this discourse were spoken by 
Jesus, and made a terribly distinct impression. 

In two instances, however, the threatened with- 
holding of forgiveness is represented as being oc- 
casioned by a slanderous assault of the Pharisees 
upon the character of the work of Jesus. We may, 
therefore, assume that this was its actual origin, 
although the tradition which Luke followed lo- 
cates it in another connection. 

The controversy arose over a case of exorcism. 
We are familiar with the demonology of that day, 
and know how every disease was attributed to 
an evil spirit, and how insanity, in particular, was 
regarded as demoniacal possession. Jesus, in per- 



THE UNPARDONABLE SIN. 191 

forming his cures, did not correct the popular be- 
lief, but proceeded upon it in restoring disordered 
intellects. We do not believe to-day nor is it 
necessary to suppose that he believed, in the ex- 
istence of a huge arch-fiend who had legions of 
inferior demons under his command, sending them 
hither and thither on missions malign. The 
casting out of a devil would be, in modern phrase, 
the restoration of a lunatic to sanity. Whatever 
the malady, whatever the cure, it matters not. The 
Pharisees attributed his work to one whom they 
believed to be the source of all evil. They called 
light darkness. They confounded moral distinc- 
tions. They stigmatized holiness as iniquity. 
They attributed the good which Jesus accom- 
plished through the power of God to deception 
and fraud, corruption and villiany. They believed 
that there was a monstrous personality of fiendish- 
ness, cruelty and depravity in the universe, and 
they were willing to taint and discredit with his 
unhallowed and polluting touch that which had 
been wrought and sanctified by the hand of Jeho- 
vah. Surely the brazen impudence of their folly 
and wickedness could go no further. Is it any 
wonder that Jesus set his blistering condemnation 
upon their shameless foreheads? The sin itself, 
therefore, was a sin against light, "falsity, willing 
sophistry, perversity of judgment about moral 
distinctions, the confounding of right and wrong, 
deeming good evil and evil good." 



192 JUSTICE AND MERCY. 

Let us now examine the phraseology in which 
Jesus pronounces upon this sin. In Matthew the 
expression is, "It shall not be forgiven him, neither 
in this world nor in that which is to come." If we 
turn to the revision, instead of world, we have the 
term age in the margin;, so that the expression 
ought to read, "Neither in this age nor in that 
which is to come." This translation gives the ex- 
act equivalent of the Greek. World, as we under- 
stand it, in the sense of place, is not intended. It 
does not mean the place in which we are living 
now, and that in which we shall live hereafter. 
It is a time word and not a term of locality. Let 
me cite the comment of Farrar upon this passage: 
"Our Lord only says that there is one particular 
s j n * * * which is so heinous as not to be 
pardonable either in this (the Jewish) or the com- 
ing (the Christian) dispensation. Nothing, there- 
fore, is of necessity implied respecting the world 
beyond the grave." Thus comments Farrar. I 
beg of you to notice this important conclusion of 
so able a scholar. He does not even admit that the 
words have reference to another life. They refer 
to this life, to some period of time that sweeps 
over men in the flesh. The force of the maledic- 
tion is simply this: He who, under any dispensa- 
tion or in any age, shuts his eyes to the light of 
that age, denying that there is light, blaspheming 
the influences at work for righteousness, opposing 



THE UNPARDONABLE SIN. 193 

the good as if it were evil, — such an one cuts him- 
self off from the joy and peace that might fill his 
soul, forfeits the advantages of progress, blights 
his character, and hardens his heart; and that, not 
by any divine intervention, but by the action of 
inevitable laws. He hauls his boat up high and 
dry upon the shore, while the tides of the divine 
spirit sweep past. "This is the condemnation — 
light has come into the world and men prefer 
darkness." 

Let us consider the form of the malediction 
in Mark. "He is in danger of eternal damna- 
tion." The revision renders this clause, "is guilty 
of an eternal sin." If we preserve the force of 
eternal, which is really the adjective of the word 
age in Matthew, we have, "is guilty of a sin pertain- 
ing to the age," or "is guilty of an age-long sin." 
Thus by the help of the revised scriptures, we get 
the two important terms in the language of Jesus 
reduced to age and age-lo?ig. These terms mean 
an indefinite period and never absolute endless- 
ness. Thus the sin, however deadly, however 
long lasting in its effects upon the soul, is at once 
taken from the region of unending darkness and 
despair, and brought into a realm where God's for- 
giving mercy may some day reach it. Even if we 
should admit, as Farrar does not, that the obstin- 
acy with which the soul resists truth is extended 
into the world beyond, and that this is taught in 

lo 



194 JUSTICE AND MERCY. 

the pass-age we need not abandon hope. We need 
not believe that the will which is most resolutely- 
set in evil can always hold out against the in- 
fluence of the Divine love. Long and hard may- 
be the struggle, but the resistance will at last give 
way. Like a rebellious child, melted to tears by 
the mother's long persuasion, the soul will at last 
fall sobbing and penitent upon the bosom of the 
infinite compassion. 

The sin itself, therefore, originally was ascrib- 
ing the works and words of Jesus to an evil source 
instead of to the spirit of God. This sin was not 
committed ignorantly or under partial light, but 
in the full splendor that streamed from his match- 
less life. The same sin may in spirit be com- 
mitted to-day by opposing light and truth. He 
who opposes the light and the truth of his own 
time, who thinks he has everything, who shuts the 
gates of his mind and bolts them with strong pre- 
judices, sins against himself and his age. 'The 
choice goes by forever 'twixt that darkness and 
that light." 

II. On the basis of this exposition, I remark as 
follows: 

i. Jesus makes a distinction between himself 
and the spirit of which he speaks, between him- 
self and God. 

He was not moved by any personal feeling. 
Men may ridicule and blaspheme him as an indi- 



THE UNPARDONABLE SIN 195 

vidual, if they will; that can be borne. But he 
stands aghast that they should sin against the 
spirit of light, and of goodness, and of truth, be- 
hind him, the spirit that girds him and guides him. 
Jesus felt that there was a power greater and wiser 
than himself from which he received light and 
strength. But if he had believed that he himself 
was God, he would never have made the distinction 
he did in the guilt of blasphemy. In that case 
blasphemy against himself would have been 
equally heinous, equally difficult of pardon. In 
discriminating, as he did, he assigned himself a 
lower rank in the universe than the one to which 
he is commonly raised, and marked himself the in- 
strument of a mightier power. He came to teach 
truth and to work righteousness. To this end he 
is equipped by the Spirit of Truth, whose other 
name is God. So fully is he in sympathy with 
that spirit, so completely is he guided by it, that 
for men to attribute its work to the prince of 
darkness, so shocks and appalls him that when 
speech comes to his lips, he pours it forth in the 
terrible warning: "Whosoever shall blaspheme 
against the Holy Spirit, is guilty of an age-long 
sin.'' 

2. This leads to the remark that the warnings 
against sin are always clear and emphatic — clear 
and emphatic as they come from the lips of Jesus, 



196 JUSTICE AND MERCY. 

clear and emphatic as they are proclaimed in the 
laws of nature. 

Those who believe that sin will finally be con- 
quered in all souls do not make sin any the less 
terrible; rather, more terrible. The charge is often 
brought that we underestimate sin and minimize 
its penalty. Not so. We believe that "every trans- 
gression and disobedience receives a just recom- 
pense," but we do not believe that it receives more 
than is just. Justice is not brutality, justice is not 
cruelty. Justice does not demand pain for the 
sake of pain; but so much as will burn out the 
transgression. We do not object to the figure of 
justice, with sword and with balances evenly 
poised; we object to substituting for that fair 
form, a hideous being, painted black, with horns 
and hoofs, breathing fire and brandishing a three- 
pronged fork. Sin is terrible. It carries its pun- 
ishment with it. In this life or the life hereafter 
suffering goes hand in hand with broken law. 
Flight from sin is the only escape from penalty. 
There is no refuge but righteousness. There is no 
deliverance but goodness. No man can escape the 
lash till he ceases to be a slave. "Which way I 
fly is hell; myself am hell!'' From this pit of tor- 
ment there is but one way out, — the way that is 
open now, the way that will never be closed — re- 
pentance and a better life. That way let every one 
who feels dissatisfied with himself, who feels his 



THE UNPARDONABLE SIN. 197 

need of something more and something nobler, 

begin today. It is folly to defer until the chains 

of habit are still more firmly riveted. 

"Long is the way and hard, 
That out of hell leads up to light." 

3. We have spoken of the sin against the Holy 
Spirit as a sin against light and knowledge. By 
whom was it committed? It was committed by 
members of the established church; by those who 
belonged to the ruling religious sect of that day. 

I have sometimes thought it might not be amiss 
to inquire whether even today we could not more 
easily find those who committed this transgression, 
among the competent expounders of obsolete 
dogmas than among the timid and sensitive souls 
who are driven by such expounders to self-accusa- 
tion. I should like to suggest the inquiry whether 
it is not a sin against the light of this age, against 
great light, for ministers to go on year after year 
ringing changes upon the words everlasting and 
hell and damnation, when the ablest scholars and 
critics of the world, have shown conclusively that 
those terms ought not to stand in a correctly trans- 
lated version of the New Testament; and when we 
have a version that so greatly modifies their harsh- 
ness of sound and meaning? Are there not hun- 
dreds today who are guilty of this age-long sin? I 
should also like to suggest the inquiry whether it 
is not a sin against light and knowledge for men 



i98 JUSTICE AND MERCY. 

who have the means for informing themselves in 
regard to the position of a liberal church, to refuse 
so to inform themselves and to go on year after 
year misrepresenting the position of such a church? 
Are there not many whose prejudices make them 
commit that sin against light? It might also be 
suggested that to preach a theology which dis- 
graced even the darkest ages of the world — a the- 
ology that still clings to a personal devil, a wrath- 
ful God, a pitiless doom, — in an age when science 
and a broader spirit of humanity have lifted the 
thought and life of mankind, is also a sin against 
light. It is blasphemy against the holy spirit of 
truth! 

4. In conclusion. Terrible and long-reaching 
as are the effects of sin, we believe that evil is only 
incidental, and not a necessary part of the universe 
or of the human soul. 

God has not made provision for his own defeat. 
Evil is doomed. Says Julius Mueller: "Good has 
but one enemy, the evil; but the evil has two 
enemies, the good and itself." The world is not 
hopeless, the future is not rayless. Even beyond 
the "age-long" sin there is a streak of dawn. 

"Then thro' the gates of Pain, I dream, 

A wind of heaven blows coolly in; 
Fainter the awful discords seem, 

The smoke of torment grows more thin; 
Tears quench the burning soil, and thence 

Spring pale, sweet flowers of penitence; 



THE UNPARDONABLE SIN. 199 

And thro' the dreary realm of man's despair, 
Star-crowned, an angel walks, and lo! God's hope 
is there." 

The souls of the redeemed will never be quite 
content, unless some arbitrary decree shall turn 
their hearts into stone, while there is sin and suf- 
fering anywhere within the dominions of their 
king. 

There is a fable by Anderson. In the forest 
high up on the sea-shore stood a very old oak 
tree. Once the tree dreamed a dream. It seemed 
as if new life were thrilling through every fiber of 
root and stem and leaf, rising even to the highest 
branches. The tree felt itself spreading out and 
stretching higher, while through the roots beneath 
the earth ran the warm vigor of life. As he grew 
higher and still higher, with increased strength, 
his topmost boughs became broader and fuller; 
and, in proportion to his growth, his self-satisfac- 
tion increased, and with it arose a joyous longing 
to grow higher and higher, to reach even to the 
sun itself. Already had his topmost branches 
pierced the clouds, which floated beneath them 
like troops of birds of passage. The stars became 
visible in broad daylight, large and sparkling, like 
clear and gentle eyes. These were wonderful and 
happy moments for the old tree, full of peace and 
joy. Yet, amidst all this happiness the tree felt 
a yearning, longing desire that all the other trees, 



200 JUSTICE AND MERCY. 

bushes, herbs and flowers beneath him might be 
able to rise higher as he had done, and to see all 
this splendor and experience all this happiness. 
The grand, majestic oak could not be quite happy 
in the midst of all his enjoyment, while all the 
rest, both small and great, were not with him. At 
length his longing was satisfied. Up through the 
clouds came the green summits of the forest trees. 
Bush and herb shot upward. "But where is the 
little blue flower that grows by the stream?" asked 
the oak; "and where is the purple bell-flower and 
the daisy?'' "We are all here!" came the answer. 
"Why, this is too beautiful to be believed," ex- 
claimed the oak: "I have them all; not one has 
been forgotten." 

Think you that any soul, redeemed from the 
bondage of sin, living and growing in the upper 
atmosphere, radiant in the sunlight that streams 
from the throne, will be satisfied while there is sin 
and suffering and degradation beneath it? Brave 
words were those of Farrar: "Unless my whole 
nature were utterly changed, I can imagine no im- 
mortality which would not be abhorrent to me if it 
were accompanied with the knowledge that mil- 
lions and millions and millions of poor suffering 
wretches, some of whom on earth I had known and 
loved, were withering in an agony without end or 
hope." But it shall not be. The uplifted oak 
shall have his companions of the forest, the trees. 



THE UNPARDONABLE SIN. 201 

the bushes, the bell-flower and the daisy, so that 
he shall exclaim: "I have them all; not one has 
been forgotten!" So shall there come a time, in 
the long sweep of ages, when the exalted spirit 
shall have the companions and friends of its earthly 
career, and be able to exclaim: "I have them all; 
not one has been forgotten; not one has been left 
to perish!" 

In the rapture of that crowning consummation, 
in that day when God shall be supreme in every 
life and throughout the universe, love's broken 
circle shall be made complete and glorious; the 
sundered ties of earth shall be reunited, and all 
the lost treasures shall be given back to aching 
hearts and empty arms; for 

"Life is ever lord of Death, 

And Love can never lose its own." 



XII. 
OUR GOD A CONSUMING FIRE 

[Sunday Evening, April 30, 1893.] 

"For our God is a consuming fire." — Hebrews, 
12:29. 

Some one who visited the battle-field of Bull 
Run, several years after the war, saw pure, delicate 
flowers growing out of empty ammunition boxes. 
A cunning scarlet verbena was peeping out of a 
huge fragment of a shell, in which strange pot it 
had been planted. A graceful rose was thrusting 
its head through the top of a broken Union drum, 
which doubtless sounded its last charge in that 
battle. Vines and blossoms were trailing over 
bones that lay white and unburied where they fell- 
Over all that scene of carnage these tokens of 
peace and beauty had sprung up and were blossom- 
ing, — bright-faced prophets of the nation's future. 

Many of these old texts have been battlefields. 
Over what part of the Bible have not the armies of 
controversy raged? Men will never read that 
book aright till they cease asking as the primary 
question, "What does it prove?" and ask instead, 
"What principles of conduct does it inculcate? 
What inspiration to the highest living does it 
furnish? I do not come to this text for the pur- 



OUR GOD A CONSUMING FIRE. 203 

pose of fighting. I shall walk where others have 
hacked their foes and scarred the earth, as he who 
went to Bull Run, to see what flowers I can gather; 
for upon this scorched and awful ground, "Our 
God is a consuming fire," are growing blossoms of 
faith and hope and love. 

It has been customary to quote this text in the 
interest of certain views of God and man that are 
terrible in the extreme. Whenever these words 
are mentioned, pictures of wrath and vengeance 
fill the mind. Men think of the fables of mytho- 
logical hells. They think of the lost as suffering 
endless woe, circled by flames that God's hand has 
kindled. We shall see, I trust, that such a use of 
the text is unwarranted. In the story of Balaam, 
whom Balak hired to curse Israel, the prophet's 
words of malediction were turned to blessings on 
his lips. He tried to curse Israel, but could not. 
This text is not an anathema, but a benediction. 

I am told that these words are inconsistent with 
the unlimited sweep given to that other text, "God 
is love," or rather that they present another side 
of the divine character, the side of that justice 
which is an essential part. It is said that we al- 
most exclusively quote the one and neglect the 
other. If this implies any antagonism between 
love and justice, we can not admit it, for justice, in 
the last analysis, is one form that love assumes; 
one direction in which love operates. How end- 



204 JUSTICE AND MERCY. 

lessly varied are the forms of water! The same 
drop that I see sparkling in the stream that dashes 
at my feet, I see afterward dancing m spray-like 
beauty over the falls; I see it moving to the gulf 
in the majestic Mississippi. I see it again in the, 
great ocean, riding up and down on mountain-like 
waves; I see it ascending sky-ward in the mist; I 
see it rolling in the clouds; I see it shining like an 
angel in the rainbow. How many transformations, 
— yet it remains the same. Love takes shapes as 
many. We see it in what is done for the poor and 
call it charity. We see it in respect for one's self 
and call it rectitude and honor. We see it ascend- 
ing to God and call it worship. We see it admin- 
istering law for wise ends and call it justice. So 
that justice, after all, is love. There is no conflict. 

I. When our God is spoken of as a consuming 
fire, it must be remembered that fire in itself may 
be an agent for good as well as for evil. It depends 
entirely upon what is behind it; what kindles it 
and uses it. To speak of the consuming fire un- 
qualified in any way, settles nothing. 

In the hand of an incendiary, fire is an evil thing 
It burns without remorse; it consumes without 
stint. It lays waste that which is beautiful as well 
as that which is unsightly. The match dropped 
by a .designing hand may cause a conflagration 
that devours the work of centuries. It may run 
through the streets of a city and lay the proudest 



OUR GOD A CONSUMING FIRE. 205 

palaces and rudest hovels side by side in indis- 
tinguishable ashes. It may sweep through a forest 
and reduce sturdy trees — the growths of ages — to 
blackened ruins. It may rage over a prairie, driv- 
ing human beings before it in agonized fright. It 
may be used by evil men for the most cruel 
purposes. Nero lighted his gardens with burning 
Christians, and many a martyr-fire since that day 
has been kindled around the faithful. It is in this 
way, I fear, that God is too often thought of when 
men speak of him as a consuming fire. They deem 
that there is such a feeling in his breast against evil 
doers that he remorselessly pursues them through 
this world and the next as a flaming fire pursues 
its objects over a broad prairie. It is supposed 
that, Nero-like, he lights the darkness of the next 
world with burning human beings. If it be so, 
God is just as much worse than a human tyrant as 
his power is greater. 

But now, upon the other hand, that word fire 
forms the root of one of the noblest words in our 
language, "purify." It comes from the Greek PUR, 
meaning fire. Purify means to take through the 
fire. A thing purified is something that has been 
through the fire. From a very early date, rude 
and savage tribes have practiced what is called 
purification by fire. They practiced it particularly 
in cases of disease. It was supposed that all 
maladies were so many defilements of the pure 



206 JUSTICE AND MERCY. 

principle that had been broken by the demons of 
night. The traditions of the Finns assert that 
lightning, the fiery sword of Ukko, slays the 
demons of illness. (It was discovered, however, 
that there were grave draw-backs attending the use 
of lightning in disease. In the first place, it was 
difficult to obtain it at the right time; and, in the 
the second place, when it did come, the patient 
got too much, an over-dose that killed him instead 
of healing the disease.) 

In course of time, among more enlightened 
tribes, ambassadors were refused admittance to 
the presence of a sovereign until they had trav- 
ersed a flame which should singe the foreign dev- 
iltries which they carried with them. Fire was 
also early used in religious ceremonies. In the 
hill regions of southern India, penitents were made 
to pass through a row of burning huts, and were 
absolved after having passed the seventh. The 
same idea found place in Christianity, in what is 
called the baptism of fire. Valentinus rebaptized 
those who had received baptism out of his sect, 
and drew them through the fire. Heraclion, who 
is cited by Clement of Alexandria, said that some 
applied hot irons to the ears of the baptized. In 
all of these old customs we find evidence of the 
value attached to fire as a purifying agent. 

When we turn to the Old Testament we find the 
same idea under the figure of a furnace — the fur 



OUR GOD A CONSUMING FIRE. 207 

nace into which gold and silver were thrown to 
purge away their dross. One of the prophets 
says of God, "He is like a refiner's fire." Another 
says, "He shall sit as a refiner and purifier of sil- 
ver, and he shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge 
them as gold and silver that they may offer unto 
God an offering in righteousness." Here the ob- 
ject of the fire is expressly declared to be the 
purging away of dross, in order that those thus 
purified might offer to the Lord an offering in 
righteousness. These are but specimen passages. 
It is related that some years ago, in the city of 
Dublin, a company of ladies were studying these 
passages. After some discussion, a committee 
was appointed to call upon a silversmith, and learn 
what they could upon the subject. The silver- 
smith readily showed them the process of refining. 
Said he, "I must sit with my eyes steadily fixed upon 
the metal, for if the time necessary for refining be 
exceeded in the slightest degree, it is sure to be 
injured, and I only know when the process is com- 
plete by seeing my own image reflected in the 
silver." No illustration can better serve our pur- 
pose. We know that the refining fire in God's 
furnace has done its work when his image is re- 
flected in the human soul. 

In the New Testament what was Gehenna itself 
but a place where purifying fires were forever kept 
burning; and if we carry out this symbolism, that 



208 JUSTICE AND MERCY. 

which men have inferred from such expressions to 
be a place of torment, becomes a furnace of puri- 
fication. Paul says that a man's work may be de- 
stroyed, but that he himself shall be saved, "yet so 
as by fire." The salvation of a man very often de- 
pends upon the burning up of much of his work, 
and much in his own life out of which that work 
sprang. The fact is, that fire is our only salvation, 
and each of us may thank God that He is a con- 
suming flame. 

II. This brings us to that other text, "God is 
love." We might substitute the one expression 
for the other and say, Love is a consuming fire. 
God so loves us that He will not tolerate our faults 
and our sins. He so loves us that the flame of his 
purifying affection will burn them out. 

"Thou judgest us; thy purity 

Doth all our lusts condemn. 
The love that draws us nearer thee 
Is hot with wrath to them." 

It is a mistake to suppose that love is mere 
amiability, that it is mere moon-faced benevolence, 
that it is mere good nature, foolishly smiling upon 
that which it lacks the power to remedy. Love 
uses severity. It has but one thing in mind — the 
good of its object. Whatever means may be nec- 
essary to serve the best interests of that object 
it does not hesitate to use. It uses the lash when 
the lash is needed. We may learn a lesson from 



OUR GOD A CONSUMING FIRE. 209 

human love. The more deep and pure it is, the 
more is it pained at the faults and follies of its ob- 
ject. The love that interests one in what that 
soul may become, that sees with clear vision the 
possibilities wrapped up in it, that forms for it an 
ideal, that sets before it a goal to be attained — 
such a love will not permit smoothness to divert 
its aims when sterner methods are needed. The 
highest proof of love is that it works in every way 
to remove blemishes, to present its object without 
spot or wrinkle or any such thing. 

In the case of a parent who truly loves her child, 
many things may be essential which seem to the 
child harsh and cruel, but the mother knows that 
they must be employed in order to train the child 
in the right way. She suffers when it is needful 
to give pain, when it is necessary to deny some- 
thing, when discipline is imperative. She suffers 
more than the child, and she suffers because she 
knows that the child does not understand the 
meaning of all her methods; yet she so loves the 
child that she says: "You must be your best at 
whatever cost to you or me." 

That is the best friendship which is absolutely 
candid; in which one seeks the good of the other, 
not only by smooth and genial efforts, but by hon- 
est, faithful criticism as well. When the distin- 
guished Dr. Paley was a student at Christ's Col- 
lege, Cambridge, though his natural abriities were 
14 



210 JUSTICE AND MERCY. 

great, he was thoughtless, idle, and a spendthrift, 
and at the commencement of his third year, he had 
made comparatively little progress. One morning 
a friend stood at his bedside. "Paley," said he, 
"I have not been able to sleep thinking about you. 
I have been thinking what a fool you are. I have 
the means of dissipation and can afford to be idle, 
if any one can. You are poor and can not afford 
to. I could do nothing probably even though I 
were to try. You are capable of doing anything. 
I have lain awake all night thinking of your folly, 
and I have now come solemnly to warn you that 
as you value my friendship you must not persist in 
your indolence and go on in this way." This is 
human love. 

This much we know in our little circle. From 
this we are able to argue to the higher love. We 
have in our own nature the only means of reading 
the divine nature. In that which is highest in man 
we find out essentially what God is like. We have 
in ourselves the key, hints and suggestions, When 
we become acquainted with the real nature of man 
in its loftiest moods and aspects, we know what God 
is and upon what principles his actions proceed. 
Some one relates: "When I lived in the woods of 
Indiana, I used to hear a great deal about the in- 
florescence of the prairies in the spring. I tried 
to imagine what it was. I had never seen a prairie, 
and I was filled with curiosity to see one, especially 



OUR GOD A CONSUMING FIRE. 211 

at that season of the year when the flowers were 
in bloom, of which I had heard such glowing de- 
scriptions. I had to make up some sort of a notion 
respecting them, and I did the best I could. I put 
my garden alongside of another, and I added 
several others to these, and then I thought of all 
the flowers they would contain, but it was a com- 
paratively limited idea that I had in mind, and I 
remember very well the morning when I first rode 
out upon a real rolling prairie. After passing 
through a piece of woods, I struck it. The sun 
was shining aslant, for it was about nine o'clock. 
The dew was on the grass and on the flowers, and 
very soon I was out at sea — or the effect was the 
same as if I had been. I could see no timber in 
any direction. It looked as if the prairie went to 
a point where the sky touched it in front, on the 
right and on the left. Flowers covered every 
little swell and every hillside. It seemed as if all 
the flowers in creation had been collected there. 
Further than the eye could reach the ground was 
covered with flowers. It looked as if the sun had 
dropped down upon the earth and stained every- 
thing with his colors, and it was easy to conceive 
that if I should go on and on, if I should travel 
all day and to-morrow and the next day and the 
next week, I should still find flowers. And what 
was my garden conception of the prairie, com- 
pared with what I took in when I saw one?" 



212 JUSTICE AND MERCY, 

And yet, in his own little garden patch, the tiniest 
flower was a revelation of the gorgeously colored 
acres that spread out before him. One little 
flower contained the secret of all those blossoming 
areas. And so, although God exceeds all that the 
eye hath seen or ear heard, all that has entered 
into the heart of man to conceive, yet the heart of 
man itself gives us the alphabet by which we can 
spell out the nature, the processes, the principles 
of action, of Him who is infinite and unsearchable. 
III. Let us follow this principle of interpreta- 
tion and ask, What is God's object in regard to 
his children? What is the object of those chas- 
tisements and penalties to which they are sub- 
jected? I answer: To save. Not to punish for 
the sake of inflicting pain; not to gratify his own 
feeling of outraged justice. He does not lay on 
his lash to see the victim writhe, saying to him at 
every stroke, "You deserve it." If he did, I should 
never mention his name again. I will not worship 
a demon though he be clothed in purple and lifted 
on high. I will worship God, who uses severity 
for the purpose of salvation. He does not punish 
because souls in heaven will not be safe if he does 
not. Such a heaven would not be worth preserv- 
ing. If the redeemed can only be kept within the 
jasper battlements because the lost are suffering 
untold horrors that stretch through endless time, 
then let the jasper battlements be razed and 



OUR GOD A CONSUMING FIRE. 213 

heaven itself destroyed! Penalty is sent in love. 
The fire burns to purify. 

Love must have control of and guide, justice, 
even among men. Justice without love is mere 
brutality. Justice administered without taking the 
culprit himself into account is justice that ought 
not be heard of in a civilized country. It may 
indeed be needful to protect the interests of 
society, and different nations and communities 
may require different methods of administering 
justice, different penalties for crime, but we ought 
to be growing towards a state of society in which 
the culprit himself shall not be lost sight of. He 
has not forfeited every right. He has not placed 
himself beyond the reach of human endeavor. He 
has not annulled his relationship to the race. He 
has not cancelled the fact that he is still a creature 
of God. In recent times the reformatory element 
in penalty is made more and more prominent. Let 
us admit that it may not be the only element, the 
only thing to be attended to; but that will be the 
best and safest condition of society that shall be 
able to make a criminal put his crimes away and 
become an upright member of society. All that 
we ought to desire for any one is that he become 
good. If he has wronged us never so deeply, to 
see him put aside his evil life, cast away his wrong 
habits, and build up a worthy character, is the 
sweetest revenge that a human being could ask. 



214 JUSTICE AND MERCY. 

Which would be better under the divine govern- 
ment, to have even such men as Nero and Caligula 
and all the rest of that infamous host whose names 
the world has not ceased to execrate — which would 
be better — -to perpetuate their sins, so to inflict 
penalty, that the spirits of those men will continue 
rebellious and intractable forever, or so to deal 
with them that somewhere, some time, their sins 
shall cease? Which is better, for God to protract 
evil through the entire future, or some day to bring 
it to an end? 

God's retributions are mercies, and those mer- 
cies follow along the lines of natural law, so 
that we may say, when a violated law brings its 
consequences, "It is the hand of God." We do 
not. mean that there are direct inflictions. We 
mean that he has so arranged the order of this 
universe that penalty follows transgression as in- 
evitably as darkness follows the setting of the sun. 
His wisdom and goodness are shown in this ar- 
rangement. The pangs and stings of conscience, 
twinges of remorse, fearful looking for of retribu- 
tion — these are God's dealings with the soul, and 
they are merciful. They will not cease in this 
world or the next until his object has been ac- 
complished. These are the fires that consume. 
They burn out and destroy that which is evil and 
they refine and purify that which is good. 

"Our God is a consuming fire." "It is not that 



OUR GOD A CONSUMING FIRE. 215 

the fire will burn us if we do not worship God," 
says George MacDonald, "but that the fire will 
burn us until we do worship God." "Our God is a 
consuming fire." In these words we read not the 
doom of man, but the doom of evil. "Our-God is 
a consuming fire." In these words we read not the 
destruction of sinners, but the destruction of their 
sins. "Our God is a consuming fire" is one of the 
strongest prophecies of the triumph of purity and 
goodness. It assures us that all wickedness in the 
individual and the universe shall at last be con- 
sumed; that all righteousness shall at last shine 
forth refined and triumphant. Burn on, O flame 
of cleansing, till the deepest dungeon of the pit 
shall be purged; till the foulest soul that rolls and 
swelters in depravity shall become pure and bright 
as the loftiest angel that casts his crown at Jeho- 
van's feet! 



XIII. 

THE REMEDY OF OBLIVION. 

AN ABSTRACT. 
[Sunday Evening, May 1, 1892.] 

It is a significant fact that the mind refuses to 
be satisfied with the present, and constantly turns 
toward the future. Exhort as we will, "attend to 
the duty of the hour," even while the hand is on 
the plow, the mind is soaring beyond field and 
furrow into space. The reasons do not lie far 
away. Only a little while ago we were not here. 
In a little while we shall go hence — whither? We 
all have friends whose names to-day we read upon 
marble. Shall we meet them beyond the grave? 
Or, are they vanished forever? For these reasons 
we shall always stand questioning at the door of 
the great silence and mystery. 

One of the most absorbing topics of speculation 
is that furnished by the fate of those who go out 
of this life without having passed through what 
the church calls conversion. 

Three answers are given: 

(i) They pass to a state of conscious torment 
that is endless. 

(2) They are blotted out — annihilated 



THE REMEDY OF OBLIVION. 217 

(3) They suffer the penalty due to their sins, 
but are finally restored by the persistent love of 
God to a state of holiness. 

These are the only solutions possible. The first 
holds the principal place in the creeds and in tra- 
ditional theology; but has suffered much in 
recent years from the revolt of popular senti- 
ment. 

The second has been invented to get rid of the 
first. It is more humane and merciful. Better the 
dreamless sleep than the interminable woe. 

If this were the only alternative, we should not 
long hesitate. We should prefer it to the horrible 
blasphemy which fastens upon the character of 
God the stigma of an eternal inquisition. But we 
believe that it is possible for God to do something 
better with the worst and vilest of his creatures 
than torture them forever or bury them in ob- 
livion. 

I have on other occasions dealt with the first of 
these answers; tonight I mean to consider the 
second and contrast it with the third. 

If we can conceive of all souls as finally per- 
fected, even by the discipline of suffering, is not 
that by far the noblest view of all? This is ad- 
mitted by the able and scholarly minister in our 
city who has recently announced his conversion to 
the doctrine of annihilation. "It is a pleasing 
theory and we wish it were true." 



218 JUSTICE AND MERCY. 

1. Let me say, then, in the first place, 

THAT THERE IN NO ADVANTAGE CLAIMED BY HIM 
FOR THE THEORY OF ANNIHILATION THAT IS NOT 
POSSESSED IN MORE EMINENT DEGREE BY THAT 
OF RESTORATION. 

i. It lays equal "emphasis upon the destructive and 
deadly nature of sin." 

We believe, too, that "no theology can survive 
the strain of careful thought which does not hold 
in firm grasp the destructive, disastrous, deadly 
nature of sin." We believe in the doctrine that 
"every transgression and disobedience shall receive 
a just recompense of reward." What more than 
this is needed? Is not the sinfulness of sin recog- 
nized when its appropriate penalty is visited upon 
it? Everyone who believes in the soul's ultimate 
restoration, believes that prior to that time the de- 
mands of justice will be fully met, and that not 
even a vicarious sacrifice can set them aside. 

2. This view interprets equally well the "symbol- 
ism of scripture." 

(i) The terms "life" and "death" indicate 
moral conditions, not duration, not mere existence, 
or its negation. "This is life eternal that they 
might know thee, the only true God." Death is 
alienation and disobedience. 

(2) The rhetoric of destruction applied to sin- 
ners may be interpreted as meaning their destruc- 
tion as sinners, not as souls. The emperor of 



THE REMEDY OF OBLIVION. 219 

China once signified his intention of destroying 
the rebels in a certain province. He afterwards 
explained that he had done so by making them 
loyal. Sin and evil will be destroyed; men will be 
saved — even though it be "as by fire." 

(3) The flames of "Gehenna" find their parallel, 
not in a garbage crematory of the universe, but 
in the experiences of the individual soul; in the 
fires of conscience that burn until the soul's dross 
and refuse, the sins and follies, are forever con- 
sumed. Who does not know, even here, what it is 
to be cast into the "Gehenna of fire?" 

j. And whe?i we leave this symbolism, we find 
that the view of restoration harmonizes best with the 
operations of God in the natural world. 

(1) The fittest, indeed, survive. But how long 
does it take to find that fitness out? Fitness is 
harmony with environment? But when is this de- 
termined? In nature it takes time to settle the 
question. In the moral realm, we dare not say that 
we have the whole of the story here. And if not, 
may we not think that in the resources of the Al- 
mighty, it may be possible to fit all for survival? 

(2) The struggle here is not quite the same as 
in the natural world where the physically weak go 
to the wall. We are under a higher law — to bear 
the infirmities of the weak, to strengthen them; 
and the God of whose love this law is an expres- 



220 JUSTICE AND MERCY. 

sion is himself pledged to the morally weak and 
infirm. 

4. Does the theory of annihilation vindicate the 
"goodness of God f How ?nuch ampler the vindica- 
tion, if all souls are restored! 

I grant the statement. "Your modern physi- 
cian will scarcely allow a man to suffer the most 
trivial surgical operation without the application 
of an anaesthetic, but according to the theory 
which is held by many people * * God pro- 
poses to keep in eternal consciousness multitudes 
of people to whom he denies even the poor com- 
fort of an anaesthetic at last." Yes; but if your 
physician could cure by deep probing, even pain 
would be justifiable. But has God, the great phy- 
sician, so hopeless a case that all he can do is to 
administer opiates? What disease can he not 
cure? And if he can cure and will, his goodness 
is vindicated. 

5. Does the obliteration of the wicked allow us "to 
look forward to a perfected universe?" Does not the 
theory of restoration give the same vision, but larger 
and clearer? 

"Every created thing which is in the heaven, 
and on the earth, and under the earth, and on the 
sea, and all things that are in them, heard I say- 
ing, Unto him that sitteth on the throne, and unto 
the lamb, be the blessing, and the honour, and the 
glory, and the dominion, for ever and ever. And 



THE REMEDY OF OBLIVION. 221 

the four living creatures said, Amen. And the 
elders fell down and worshipped." 

II. But there are certain positive objec- 
tions TO THE THEORY OF ANNIHILATION, WHEN WE 
COME TO CONSIDER IT IN ITSELF. 

i. It destroys punishment in any proper sense. It 
abolishes penalty in any fair use of the word. In 
this view of the case, there can be no such thing 
as penalty. 

(i) Do you say, "The annihilation itself is 
penalty?" How? "The fear of it." Many desire 
it. If they could be assured of it, they would re- 
joice. It removes all dread of suffering hereafter. 

(2) Do you say, "Even if they are blotted 
out, they suffer and are punished here?" Then 
what is accomplished? What does this suffering 
amount to after the stroke has ceased in endless 
unconsciousness? What good did it do? What 
purpose did it serve? The statue on which the 
strokes of the chisel fell, is ground to powder — 
destroyed as a statue. Where are the marks of the 
chisel now? Where are the results in marble? 

2. Where is the line? Who are the incorrigible? 
The young and half-formed? Surely not. The 
criminal? Many a desperate character has been 
reformed. The old? They often change at the 
very last. Can we say that there is ever a time 
when all possibility of good is destroyed? 



222 JUSTICE AND MERCY, 

j. Say what we will, it stamps the universe as a 
failure. 

Is not the same plan in all? Are not all capable 
of goodness and happiness? Is not the failure of 
one the failure of the entire scheme? 

Says Rev. John W. Chadwick: "The sense of 
greatness and imperishable worth feeds not the 
stream of our immortal hope a whit more gener- 
ously than the sense of human weakness, maimed 
and stunted life, arrested development, men and 
women for whom life is not worth living, if this 
life be all. * * What logic there is here, I 
pause not to discover. My only claim is that the 
hope of immortality fed by the sense of this human 
misery, this longing thatthe most miserable of men 
shall have a chance to live before they die forever, 
is not an ignoble, not an unworthy hope. By this 
sign it conquers, if by no other. The criticism 
usually comes from those who dream a dream of 
an ideal and perfected humanity here on this earth. 
It is a noble dream ennobling all who cherish it 
and strive to realize some little fraction here and 
now of its sublime integrity. But if this dream is 
noble and ennobling, what can there be ignoble 
and debasing in the dream of a good time coming 
for the millions upon millions who can not live to 
see that glorious day, who have already endured 
the evil of existence for a little while and gone 
their way — whither? While I have life I will 



THE REMEDY OF OBLIVION. 223 

never surrender the hope that they have gone to 
other life and larger opportunities." 

The only rational and satisfactory conclusion: 

"Not one life shall be destroyed, 
Or cast as rubbish to the void, 
When God hath made the pile complete!" 



XIV. 
PERSONAL VERSUS IMPUTED RIGHTEOUSNESS. 

[Sunday Morning, Dec. 6, 1891.] 

"My little children, let no man lead you astray: he 
that doeth righteousness is righteous, even as he is 
righteous." — I John 3 : 7. 

The little church of St. James by the Deep 
Stream is the oldest in Venice. It is crumbling 
now, and is no longer used for worship. It stands 
in the midst of the market place. The stalls of 
the buyers and sellers have crept close to the base 
of the sanctuary. Upon the venerable structure, 
this inscription may still be read: "Around this 
temple let the merchant's law be just, his weights 
true, and his covenants faithful." A good motto 
to be placed over the doors of every church that 
stands in the heart of a busy city, — a good text for 
the preaching within! It illustrates the sentiment 
of the words I have read from John. This senti- 
ment is also illustrated by an old ledger which 
was recently brought to light in Edinburgh, Scot- 
land. It belonged to a merchant of the sixteenth 
century. At the top of the inside board, the book- 
keeper inscribed the words: "God bless this 
book and keep me and it honest." A business man 
in our own city related to me one day a transac- 



RIGHTEOUSNESS. 225 

tion, of which he said, "I followed the best light I 
had, but I have often wondered what Jesus 
Christ would have done in the same circum- 
stances." A man who can ask that question in 
sincerity is not likely to go far astray. 

The text may be paraphrased: Let there be no 
misunderstanding about this matter. The right- 
eous man, he who is justified in the sight of God, 
is the man who does right just as Christ himself 
did right; who stands before heaven and earth on 
the basis of his own character, just as Christ stands 
upon the basis of his character. Let no one lead 
you astray by teaching you that there is any being 
in this universe who can take your place in obe- 
dience or in penalty. Every man stands for him- 
self; there is no righteousness that avails for him 
but his own. There is no punishment but that 
which he himself suffers for his own transgres- 
sions. The penalty which ought to fall upon him 
is never laid upon the shoulders of another. Sooner 
or later the blow falls where it belongs. There is 
nothing more firmly established than the great 
law: "Every transgression and disobedience 
shall receive a just recompense of reward." 

When you come to investigate the matter close- 
ly, you will find that the Church of the Redeemer 
is one of the few churches in our city that believe 
in any real penalty for sin, — notwithstanding the 

charge is constantly made that we let the sinner 
15 



226 JUSTICE AND MERCY, 

go free. Is it not true, however, that our brethren 
who bring this accusation, by some strange para- 
dox, teach constantly and persistently that there 
is some sort of arrangement in the Divine govern- 
ment by which a man need not suffer punishment 
for his sins; that he can shift the penalty to Christ? 
Is not one of their favorite revival hymns, "Jesus 
died and paid it all"? Does not the Venerable 
Confession say of the elect: "His obedience and 
satisfaction were accepted in their stead"? "Those 
whom God effectually calleth, he also freely jus- 
tifieth." How? "By imputing the obedience and 
satisfaction of Christ unto them, they receiving and 
resting on him and his righteousness by faith"? 
Is not this the common teaching of the pulpit? 
And does it not contravene the statement of the 
text: "He that doeth righteousness is righteous"? 
Not he who has it imputed, or in some mysterious 
way imparted, but he who works it out in his own 
heart and life,— he is righteous in the only true 
and proper sense. 

It is not often that I have the privilege of listen- 
ing to the preaching of others. Sometimes, how- 
ever, on a summer evening, during the season 
when we hold but a single service, I am thus favored. 
So I listened a few months ago to a distinguished 
and successful clergyman of our own city. Through 
most of his sermon, he emphasized the immuta- 
bility of law in the moral as well as in the natural 



RIGHTEOUSNESS. 227 

world. I said to myself, "That is good! We 
could not make that any stronger down at the 
Church of the Redeemer." But in closing, he 
said, in substance: "My young friends, God fore- 
sawthat you could not or would not keep his laws, 
so he sent Christ to take your place; and if you 
only believe in him, you stand before God as if 
you had never sinned. Your transgressions are 
blotted out, and the penalty is set aside!" And 
then I said to myself, "That closing remark, in- 
stead of completing the temple so nobly begun, 
shatters the very foundation!" 

In strong contrast with the doctrine of the creed 
and the words of the preacher, stands the text: 
"He that doeth righteousness is righteous." This 
is one of the most important verses in the New 
Testament. It marks out the only path of salva- 
tion. It stretches from earth to the throne of the 
Eternal. The glory of the hereafter lies along the 
pathway, and at the end of the pathway of right- 
eousness. "Not every one that saith Lord, Lord, 
shall enter into the kingdom of heaven, but he 
that doeth the will of my Father which is in 
neaven." 

I. The word from which our term righteousness 
comes, implies a comparison or standard. It 
means originally even or equal or like. There is 
something beyond the object spoken of in connec- 
tion with the adjective righteous. That object is 



228 JUSTICE AND MERCY. 

even with, or equal to, or like something else. A 
righteous man, therefore, is one who conforms to a 
certain moral or spiritual standard. 

What is that standard? What is the law by 
which we must be measured? It is God's law* 
written in the soul of man, in his body, in the con- 
stitution of the universe and of human society, — 
God's law illustrated in the character of Jesus 
Christ. Conformity with this law is righteousness. 
Without consenting to that monstrous theological 
fiction, the fall of the race in Adam, whereby we 
are all said to be under the curse of the law and 
deserving of endless fire, it is true that every one 
has, to a greater or lesser extent, gotten away 
from the divine statutes, and needs to be brought 
back. He is out of harmony with the thought and 
life of God; out of harmony with his own better 
and nobler self. The links have been broken and 
must be welded again. Men are saved when they 
return to their forsaken allegiance. They are in 
the way of salvation when they re-enter the 
dominion of law. They are lost, so long as they 
continue to violate — in this world or in that which 
is to come. Locality makes no difference; time 
makes no difference. It is the inward spirit that 
builds the walls of Paradise or digs deep the 
infernal pit! 

The growth of the soul to the full measure of 
its new stature will be gradual. A moment may 



RIGHTEOUSNESS. 229 

suffice for the beginning; but there is no process 
by which a complete transformation of character 
can be suddenly effected. It can not be done 
before one comes to the death-bed; it can not be 
done upon the death bed. As we leave this life we 
enter that which lies beyond. The methods by 
which character is changed and uplifted must be 
very much the same there as here, — slow and 
progressive. We believe, indeed, that entire 
deliverance from the power of sin will at last be 
effected; but there as here we must pass through 
the refining and purifying fires of God's consuming 
love. It is very true that no ceremony performed 
over a dying man will fit him for the kingdom of 
"God; neither will a "drop of blood applied to his 
soul" — whatever that may mean. It is not in order 
for anyone to criticize "extreme unction" who 
believes that by any other sort of legerdemain the 
blackness of human iniquity may be instanta- 
neously converted into the whiteness of heaven. 

What is the remedy for human lawlessness ? Not 
to have the laws done away; not to change our 
definition of salvation; not to have another method 
introduced which nullifies the law and loosens its 
grip; but to conform, to become obedient, to do 
right, think aright, live aright, until the right 
becomes incarnate in us, as it was in him of whom 
it was written: 

"And so the Word had breath, and wrought 
With human hands the creed of creeds, 



230 JUSTICE AND MERCY. 

In loveliness of perfect deeds, 
More strong than all poetic thought, 

" Which he may read who binds the sheaf, 
Or builds the house or digs the grave, 
Or those wild eyes that watch the wave 

In roarings round the coral reef." 

The sooner we get over the idea that some one 
else can obey and satisfy justice in our stead, the 
better. The sooner we get over the notion that 
character is transferable, — the sooner we cease 
trying to lift ourselves into heaven by clutching 
another's robe of righteousness, — the sooner we 
cease trying to wash away our sins in the blood of 
an innocent person, — the better for our moral 
power, the better for our self-respect. Even if all 
this could be done, we ought not to permit our- 
selves thus to be carried to the skies. Even were 
such substitutionary measures possible, it would 
be unspeakably base in us to permit the guiltless 
to bear the rod and languish in the dungeons for 
sins that we have committed. Dull must our 
sense of honor be if, with full understanding of all 
that such vicariousness involves, we could meek- 
ly and even gratefully acquiesce in such an ar- 
rangement. But the arrangement cannot be 
made. That is the all-important fact. The sub- 
stitution of one person's suffering and obedience 
for another's is out of the question. Righteous- 
ness by imputation is just what the term indicates 
— righteousness by imagination. God looks upon 
us and accounts us righteous, although he knows 



RIGHTEOUSNESS. 231 

that in reality we are not. He says, "They shall 
be to me as if they had the holiness of Jesus," 
when he knows that we have not the holiness of 
Jesus. Thus does this theory not only weaken the 
principles of honor and self-respect in man, but it 
makes God, the infinite wisdom, play tricks upon 
his own intelligence. 

Well saith John, the Beloved, "Let no one lead 
you astray." Let us not deceive ourselves. 
Christ is the wise master-builder; but we must hew 
the stones, and mix the mortar, and build the 
structure. We work under his direction, it is true, 
but the work must be done by us and not by him. 
Those who live upon the sea-shore hear the un- 
ceasing anthem of the deep. Whatever the life 
may be upon the strand, above the voices and 
laughter of the crowd, the rattle and roar of busi- 
ness, the solemn music is heard. So over all the 
voices of the earth, comes the resounding message 
of the skies: "He that doeth righteousness is 
righteous." We hear it above the debates of 
councils, above the clashing of creeds, above the 
Babel of theology. "He that doeth righteousness 
is righteous." We hear it above the clamor of the 
pulpit; we hear it above the congratulations of 
the thoughtless and easy-going, glad that they 
have some one to assume their liabilities. "He 
that doeth righteousness is righteous." This an- 
them will roll on till all opposing voices have been 



232 JUSTICE AND MERCY. 

hushed, till all hearts begin to keep time and tune 
with its solemn and majestic strains, for it is the 
echo of the everlasting ocean. It is the music of 
God's righteousness, supreme and infinite. 

II. I shall now be asked, what place have you 
left for love? It seems to be all law. I reply 
that there is no place for love outside of a universe 
of law. Browning says: 

"I have gone the whole round of creation; I spake as I saw; 
I report as a man may oi God's work : all's love, but all's law. " 

The love of God is shown in every principle he 
has established. Every law is rooted in his own 
heart. Not unless his own nature be reversed, 
can he do otherwise than he has done. His love 
is shown in establishing the goal; his love, is 
shown in all the moral and spiritual influences he 
has given to strengthen us for the race. He 
means to bring us *to himself; he means to make 
us like him in character; and to this end he has 
shaped the universe. "Great and marvelous are 
thy works, O Lord God almighty, in wisdom hast 
thou made them all!" 

Someone asks me whether we are not saved by 
faith, whether this is not the teaching in many 
parts of the New Testament. Certainly, but what 
is faith? A substitute for law? No; not so. It 
is a motive power to bring us up to law. What is 
faith? Not a barren, speculative, intellectual be- 
lief. Men may say, according to James, "I believe 



RIGHTEOUSNESS. 233 

in God;" but that, he tells us, in itself, amounts to 
nothing. The faith that James preaches is a faith 
in righteousness, a faith in good works, a faith in 
love, purity, benevolence; a faith in the reality of 
the highest qualities of the soul; a faith that takes 
hold of all things good and true and translates them 
into character and conduct. 

This explains what faith in Christ means. How 
men have fought over that question! How they 
have insisted that it meant acceptance of certain 
views of his person and work! How they have 
rent his seamless robe, and used the fragments to 
flaunt defiance in each others' faces! Faith in 
Christ means belief in such a life as he led, in the 
great spiritual principles which he illustrates, in 
the possibility of basing the structure of character 
upon those principles. That is what it means. It 
is the soul's grasp upon the eternal verities that he 
exemplifies. 

This explains what is meant when he is spoken 
of as a Saviour. We may receive inspiration and 
stimulus; we may be lifted up by fresh impulses 
out of the old way of living, and sent forward 
along new pathways. This is the only sort of 
spiritual help we can receive from any one. In the 
early summer, I pass by a field of corn in which 
the stalks are all small and withered, yellow and 
sickly. The roadside dust has gathered thick 
upon them; the tender blades are weighed down 



234 JUSTICE AND MERCY. 

under the burden. I think I can hear each feeble 
blade murmuring the question: "Who will save 
us? ' "What shall help us?" "What shall bring 
us to the noble stalks and ripened ears?" At 
length the clouds gather, send down their rail), 
and the fields rejoice. The plants all shout: "We 
are saved by the rain!" What did the rain do? 
Take the place of the corn? Bear the burden of 
the dust, the hot furnace of the sun? No; it went 
down to the roots of the corn, it stimulated their 
growth, it put new life and vigor into the withered 
blade; and thus by the influence of the rain, the 
stalks began to grow towards the fulness and gold 
of Autumn! 

This is the work of Christ. It is by the fresh 
incitement, by the moral quickening he gives us, 
that he saves. He does not come into the world 
to free men from the restraints of the law, or to 
take upon himself the penalty of their transgres- 
sions; it is because of his uplifting qualities that 
he has become the mighty power we find him. 
Suppose you discover a man in the gutter, drunk 
and deserted. How would you set about it, if you 
wanted to effect his reformation? Would you go 
to him and say, "You have violated the laws of 
the city, but I will go to the lock-up for you; I 
will pay your fine to-morrow morning; I will be 
sober in your stead; I will bear all your iniquities 
and your penalties; and in the eyes of the authori- 



RIGHTEOUSNESS. 235 

ties, I will be considered the drunken and you the 
sober one!" How much of a reformation would 
that effect? And yet multitudes think that this is 
Christ's method of reforming the world. What 
would you do? You would try to reach the latent 
and obscured manhood in that drunkard. You 
would try to eradicate his appetite by all the 
means that are known. You would try to inspire 
him with such hope and trust in the possibility of 
reformation, with such noble thoughts and ideas 
as would lead him to make the effort to bring his 
soul into the ascendant. It is in this way pre- 
cisely that we are saved by Christ. By his own 
truth and life, and by these alone, does he awaken 
the desire for truth and holiness, and spur us on 
to the accomplishment. 

Men have apprehended his work differently, 
have described it in different terms; but the root 
of the whole matter is that he taught the world 
how to live and gave from his own life the im- 
pulse. The blackest sinners looking upon the 
spotless purity of his character, were convicted 
of their own sins, and made strong to forsake 
them. The very lowest looked up from their 
degradation, beheld him, and took new hope. 
From the far-off lands into which they had wan- 
dered, where they made their beds with the 
swine, prodigals saw his light shining to guide 
them back to the house of their Father. Every- 



236 JUSTICE AND MERCY. 

where men looked at him and read anew the 
meaning of life. They looked and became strong 
for endeavor. To that life we turn from the be- 
wilderments and temptations of the present. 
Like a clear star shining amid clouds, its light will, 
not lead us astray. It is said of General Sheridan 
that his family always had an abiding faith in the 
power of Phil to compel victory on all occasions. 
The great commander, in all his career, was never 
so cornered by the rebels, but that he could easily 
escape, they were confident. When the word of 
the defeat of Sheridan's troops at Cedar Creek 
was carried to his mother, she did not believe it, 
Being assured that it was certainly true, she at last 
admitted that the troops might have been driven 
back by Early's men; but if so Phil was not there. 
They would never have moved an inch if he had 
been. Within a short time the true story of Sheri- 
dan's ride to Cedar Creek was told her, and how 
her boy had turned defeat into glorious victory. 
"Well," said Mrs. Sheridan, "didn't I tell you that 
if Phil's troops were whipped, he was not there! 
I could always depend upon Phil." In like manner 
the world has come to believe that, in the moral 
and spiritual leadership and captaincy of Christ, 
there is something upon which we may always 
depend. The force of his influence is not yet 
spent; it is mighty to-day, not to abrogate law; 
not to abolish penalty; but to draw us from sin 



RIGHTEOUSNESS. 237 

and discord into harmony with law. The penalty 
only ceases when we are emancipated from sin. 
Christ is not righteous in our stead; he incites us 
to righteousness. 

III. And this brings us round the circle back to 
the point from which we started, and shows us 
how in a universe of lav/, there may be love and 
moral inspiration; how, with obedience as the 
goal, there may be wise and tender influences to 
bring us to obedience, — to bring us into harmony 
with God and with his laws. "He that doeth 
righteousness is righteous, even as he is right- 
eous." And these are some of the means by which 
we are led from rebellion into loyalty, from trans- 
gression into submission, from sin to God. 

Let us understand that not a single law has been 
abrogated, that the standard of the moral life has 
never been lowered, that no human being has been 
freed from responsibility, that no one has rendered 
an obedience to God that will count for us, that 
no device has been invented by the Divine gov- 
ernor through which we may escape the conse- 
quences of our sins and cheat eternal justice. Each 
one stands for himself before God. Every man 
shall bear his own burden. "He that doeth right- 
eousness is righteous." I wish that these words 
could be engraved with a pen of fire upon every 
heart. 

I wish that these words could be made the text 



238 JUSTICE AND MERCY. 

of every revival that is started in our city. Instead 
of encouraging people to believe that their respon- 
sibilities can be shifted and that God lays the lash 
for what they have done of meanness and fraud 
and falsehood upon the back of his own best be-, 
loved Son, — I would that the better and more 
robust doctrine could be taught that in God's gov- 
ernment no guilty soul escapes, that even if that 
soul could take the wings of the morning and fly 
to the remotest star, there would the dread 
avenger confront him; that the only salvation to 
be taught is salvation from sin; that the only 
righteousness that avails is personal and not im- 
puted. 

By all means let us have such revivals. Let us 
have a revival that shall first of all strip away the 
garb of ignorance and vulgarity in which the pro- 
fessional revivalist is himself too often clothed. 
By all means, let us have revivals, and let them 
be so powerful that they will burn out hatred and 
envy and backbiting and bigotry and jealousy in 
the churches themselves; that will make a religion 
worth having at home before we export it to the 
heathen; that will make us just and fair in our 
dealings with them before we seek their conver- 
sion. Let us have revivals of conscience, of pure 
living, of high ideals, of truthfulness, honesty, 
self-denial, private and civic virtue; let us have re- 
vivals of right morals in business that shall sweep 



RIGHTEOUSNESS. 239 

through office and store, through counting-room 
and market-place, and lift men everywhere to the 
lofty level of the golden rule! Let us have a 
revival based upon this text, whose organizing 
idea shall be practical righteousness. Over such 
a revival earth would rejoice and the very angels 
of heaven would bend with gladdened faces. The 
result of such a revival would be to establish in 
all hearts a confidence that "the Lord God Om- 
nipotent reigneth!" 



XV. 
"WHAT MUST I DO TO BE SAVED?" 

[Sunday Morning, January 24, 1892.] 

"What must I do to be saved?" — Acts, 16:30. 

According to the account that has been handed 
down, that was a strange, wild scene in the Phil- 
lippian jail out of which this cry sounded, — a cry 
as of a startled bird at night. Paul and Silas were 
making their cells vocal with song, when lo! the 
shock of an earthquake. The ground heaves be- 
neath them like the waves of a sea; the strong walls 
reel and totter; the prison doors fly open. The 
jailor, suddenly aroused from sleep, thinks that 
the prisoners have escaped. Out flashes his sword 
from its scabbard; he will kill himself rather than 
be disgraced before the authorities. "Do thyself 
no harm," cries Paul, "for we are all here." Trem- 
bling, the jailer falls down before them, exclaim- 
ing: "What must I do to be saved?" 

Let us not suppose that this frightened official 
was asking the way of salvation in a religious 
sense. His nerves were shaken by the startling 
events of the night. He was as one roused in an 
instant from a terrible dream to a more terrible 
reality. His question was a hysterical demand 
how he should be saved from the authorities when 



WHA T MUST I DO TO BE SA VED? 241 

they found the prison doors swinging loose on 
their hinges. Bodily safety was undoubtedly what 
he had in mind, so far as he had anything in 
mind, — anything definite. But Paul tries to sooth 
him. With infinite tact he diverts his attention 
from anticipated punishment. The form of the 
question gives him an opportunity to preach the 
very gospel for which he had been thrown into 
that prison. He bids the distracted officer think 
not of the safety of his person, but of the salvation 
of his soul. "What must I do to be saved?" ex- 
claims the jailer in his terror. Paul's heart was 
a fountain filled with the thought of the matchless 
life that had touched and transformed his own; 
and how natural it was that when he heard the 
word "saved" in any connection, the answer he 
gave should spontaneously well up: "Believe in 
the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." 

Let us use the question to-day as it is commonly 
employed, not as it was originally uttered, — the 
cry of one in a frenzy of fear, — but as the intelli- 
gent inquiry of an earnest spirit. 

Let us imagine that we are quietly conversing 

together, and one of you says: "I feel that my life 

is not what it should be. I am conscious that I 

have often done wrong when I knew what was 

right; that I have wilfully gone astray when the 

path of duty was plain before me. I am depressed 

and cast down by my moral failures and by my 
16 



242 JUSTICE AND MERCY. 

sins. If this is being lost, what must I do to be 
saved?" 

Very good; but we must understand each other. 
There is a prior question. There is something to 
be settled first. I ask — 

I. From what do you wish to be saved? 

You use the expression of the old jailer. I have 
suggested that, in the confusion of the night, he 
did not attach much meaning to it. But what do 
you mean? From what do you want to be saved? 
It all depends upon clearly stating your idea. 

"Well," you answer, "I know that I have sinned, 
and I feel that God is angry with the wicked and 
hates them. I want you to tell me how to be 
saved from Ms wrath. This is my desire." 

Now, I want to tell you that there is not and 
cannot be any such thing in God as you and I un- 
derstand by wrath. It is true He has expressed 
his disapprobation of sin in the consequences 
which follow the violation of his laws in the soul, 
the body, the universe. But this is done in love 
to correct evil, to turn men aside from sin, and not 
in frenzy. His bolts are not hurled in vengeance, 
as men retaliate upon each other. He does not 
delight in destruction. When his laws smite us 
in their operation, it is to heal and not to kill. The 
sword falls with the glitter of lightning, but also 
with the glow of sunrise upon its blade. Let us 
be sure that we can never receive harm from God. 



WHA T MUST I DO TO BE SA VED? 243 

Think of Him no longer as the tornado, twisting 
from their places and hurling down to destruction 
all things fail and beautiful; not as a tiger ravag- 
ing the forests; not as a Nero, cold and cruel, de- 
lighting in torture. Never shall we receive hurt 
or mischief from God. It is not from wrath that 
we are to be saved; there is no wrath that renders 
such salvation necessary. 

"The ancient gods are dead. 
No Roman despot sits on heaven's throne, 
Dispensing favors by his will alone; 
Sends some to heaven and some to lowest hell, 
In unprogressive woe or bliss to dwell; 
Demands no horrid sacrifice of blood, 
Nor nails his victims to the cruel wood 
In others' guilty stead. 

"The ancient gods are dead. 
Law iules majestic in the courts above, 
And has no moods, but hand in hand with love, 
Sweeps thro' the universe, and smiling sees 
The spheres obedient to her vast decrees, 
Proclaims all men the sons not slaves of God. 
And breathes the message of his Fatherhood. 
The True God is not dead." 

"But," you say, "I may not have been happy 
in expressing myself. Perhaps I ought to say that 
it is the justice of God from which I desire to be 
saved. This may be the better word." 

The justice of God? Saved from the justice of 
God? Why, my hope is that equal and exact jus- 
tice will at last be done everywhere and to all 
men. Strange that we shouid want to be deliv- 



244 JUSTICE AND MERCY. 

ered from this attribute of God and its operations,- 
unless we are consciously trying to outwit and de- 
fraud him. The trouble is, we have interpreted 
brutality and fiendishness into our conception of 
justice, and stand trembling before our own cari-' 
cature. Justice renders to each his due at last, — 
nothing more, nothing less. Justice metes out to 
each transgression and disobedience a fair recom- 
pense of reward, — a "just" recompense. Saved 
from the justice of God? Why, God's justice has 
been the hope of the oppressed in all ages. It is 
the hope of those who are trodden down today. 
It will work in this world and the next, until all 
wrongs are righted, till that which is crooked shall 
have been made straight, till the hills are leveled 
and the valleys exalted. 
We sing with Whittier — 

'•We only know that God is just, 
And every wrong shall die." 

We exclaim with Queen Catharine — 

"Well, Heaven's above us still; there sits a Judge 
No king can corrupt." 

"But," you say, "perhaps I have not yet gotten 
at the thing I mean. It is the penalty of sin from 
which I wish to be saved." 

Exactly so; that is what I was thinking all the 
time. You want me to assure you that you will 
not suffer for your sins. You want me to tell you 
how the pain and anguish and disgrace attending 



WHA T MUST I DO TO BE SA VED? 245 

sin may be removed. You want to know how the 
burden of remorse shall be lifted from your con- 
science. You want to know how your boat may 
play upon the current of Niagara above the falls, 
without taking a plunge over the awful precipice. 
But this is precisely what cannot be done. There 
is no salvation from the penalty of sin, in itself con- 
sidered. 

I hear it said sometimes: u O, Mr. Shutter 
preaches that you may do as you like, and there is 
no punishment." It is surprising how people who 
never hear me preach know so much better than I 
do what I preach. It is hardly excusable that the 
doctrines of this church should be so grossly mis- 
understood and misrepresented. People have an 
idea of what we teach, or ought to teach, and will 
not have it modified by anything we can say. 
There was a very good minister once who had used 
the same hymn-book for so many years that he be- 
came greatly attached to it. One day some of the 
small boys in the congregation took the book and 
pasted the ballad of "Old Father Grimes" between 
the leaves. The next Sunday the clergyman 
opened at this very place, read a line or two, 
stopped, rubbed his spectacles, began again, 
stopped and said: "Brethren I have used this 
hymn-book now tweuty years. I never found 
this hymn before, but it is here and I know it is 
all right. We'll sing it if it kills us!" Well, 



246 JUSTICE AND MERCY. 

people seem to have it down in black and white 
that we do not believe in punishment, and they 
will stick to it if it kills them. I have said ten 
thousand times that every evil thought, every un- 
kind word, every unmanly deed, will bring, here 
or hereafter, its just and equitable penalty. It is 
as certain as sunlight or gravitation. No atone- 
ment of blood, no substitutionary sacrifice, no 
transfer of righteousness or guilt, can stand be- 
tween the sinner and the lash! The thing you ask 
for, therefore, salvatio?i from pe?ialty, is the very 
thing that, in this church, we cannot promise. 

Now, if you have run your round, and ask me: 
"From what, then, are we to be saved?" I will 
tell you, as best I am able. 

Let us take a few illustrations from the New 
Testament. The disciples on one occasion had a 
dispute about place and position in the kingdom 
of heaven. Their personal ambitions were making 
havoc with their spiritual growth. So Jesus tells 
them that unless they put their miserable strifes 
and consuming ambitions away, and become as 
little children, they cannot even enter the king- 
dom of heaven, — to say nothing about attaining 
prominence there! The young man who came 
asking the way of eternal life, was told that he 
must be delivered from selfishness. The scribe 
must cease despising his neighbor; the publican 
must wash his hands so clean that none of the 



WHA T MUST I DO TO BE SA VED? 247 

taxes he gathered should stick to his fingers, — he 
must put away dishonesty and become honest; 
the fallen must be rescued from impurity. 

What do these illustrations show? That we 
must be delivered from sin; and especially from that 
form of sin which so easily besets us. Paul says: 
'Tutting away lying, speak every man truth to his 
neighbor." That is the salvation a liar needs. 
"Let him that stole steal no more, but rather let 
him labor." That is the salvation a thief needs. 
"Let no corrupt communication proceed out of 
your mouth, but that which is good." That is the 
salvation the foul-mouthed need. "Let all bitter- 
ness and wrath and anger and clamor and evil- 
speaking be put away from you, with all malice; 
and be ye kind to one another, tender-hearted, for- 
giving." That is the salvation that harsh and bit- 
ter spirits always need. Wrong thoughts and 
wrong deeds, — these are the devils to be exorcised; 
these are the flames to bequenched. These are 
the things from which we must be saved. 

There is no one in this universe whom we need 
fear but ourselves. You remember the legend of 
the giant specter in the Alps. Many were terri- 
fied by the formidable apparition. But upon ex- 
amination it was found to be the huge shadow of 
the person who saw it. Hell is but the black 
shadow of the evil heart. Make that evil heart 



248 JUSTICE AND MERCY. 

good, and the future is filled with a vision of Par- 
adise. 

Sin, therefore, is the thing from which we must 
be saved. 

"To be saved is only this — 

Salvation from our selfishness, 

From more than elemental fire, 

The soul's unsanctified desire; 

From sin itself, and not the pain 

That warns us of its chafing chain." 

From this hell, I proclaim a possible deliverance ! 

II. Now comes the other question: "What 
must we do to be saved?" Show me the way 
out. Show me how I am to escape the bondage 
in which I find myself, the burdens that weigh 
upon me. Show me now I shall be saved from 
my wrong thoughts and wrong conduct. 

Let us read the answer Paul made to the wild 
and wandering exclamation of the Philippian 
jailer: "Believe on the Lprd Jesus Christ, and 
thou shalt be saved." But you ask: "What does 
that mean?" You tell me there are so many ex- 
planations of it that you know not which is right. 

I am asked whether belief in Christ means be- 
lief in any special theory of his origin or nature or 
rank, and I say "No, — one may believe in the most 
stringent theories about Christ and yet be none 
the better." A man may believe in the rules of 
arithmetic, and yet not be able to count. One may 
believe that there are twenty-six letters in the al- 



WHAT MUST I DO TO BE SA VEDf 249 

phabet, and yet not be able to put half a dozen of 
them together, so as to spell a simple word cor- 
rectly. One may believe that Jesus was the very 
God himself, and that belief may have no influence 
whatever upon his daily life. The belief that rev- 
olutionizes character is something more. 

I am asked whether it means belief in any 
special philosophy of his work. Must I come and 
kneel to him and say, " O Master, appease in my 
behalf the Father's wrath, get my punishment an- 
nulled, secure for me the divine favor, bring me to 
everlasting happiness." Is that what it means? 
Again, I answer "No." There never raged a 
wrath in heaven against the inhabitants of 
earth that needed to be quenched in innocent 
blood. Neither do we need an intercessor to plead 
with God to be merciful. When petitions are to 
be presented to an earthly monarch, they must be 
borne by some one high in favor with the king. 
Not so our Father in heaven. Each one — the 
humblest and weakest of his subjects, may come 
into his immediate presence, and needs not the 
intervention of some one who stands higher in his 
regard. There is no alienation on the part of God 
that demands the transaction of the soul's affairs 
through some ambassador upon the one side or 
attorney upon the other. Face to face we may 
speak ! 

What, then, is meant, when it is said: "Believe 



250 JUSTICE AND MERCY, 

on the Lord Jesus Christ,, and thou shalt be 
saved?" Let me give you an illustration. Some 
of you saw the war drama, the "Shenandoah," at 
the Grand Opera House last week. In the third 
act, the retreat of the Union troops from Cedar , 
Creek is shown. They are beaten back by the 
enemy, leaving the dead and the wounded along 
the path of defeat. The flag is furled, the artillery 
wheeled backward unloaded. All at once the ser- 
geant, standing on an eminence, descries in the dis- 
tance a dark object moving rapidly along the road. 
It is Sheridan upon his war steed. He sets up the 
shout: "Sheridan is coming! Sheridan is coming!" 
Others catch the words as they are sounded 
along the line: ''Sheridan is coming!" What a 
change comes over the spirits of the repulsed and 
beaten army. The retreat is stopped. Every 
man turns right about and grasps his musket with 
a firmer hand. And when the intrepid general 
dashes among them he leads them to a glorious 
triumph and retrieves the shattered fortunes of 
the day. What wrought the transformation? 
Faith, a saving faith in the military sense. 
Every man in that army believed in Phil. Sheri- 
dan, believed in his generalship, believed in him 
as victory incarnate; and the soldierly qualities in 
Sheridan made a soldier of every man in the 
ranks. He saved them by the inspiration of his 
personality. If the soldiers had stopped to dis* 



WHA T MUST I DO TO BE SA VEDf 251 

pute with each other, they might have found 
many questions about their commander to en- 
gender strife. They might have debated about 
his birth-place, his father and mother, many of 
the incidents of his life, whence h # e derived the 
power that made him what he was, how he got his 
ability to command. If they had followed the ex- 
ample of many Christian people in their contro- 
versies about Christ, they would never have be- 
come soldiers, and they never would have won a 
battle. But by coming under the influence of one 
who embodied all the elements that make a hero, 
by putting their trust in him, by believing that his 
name was a synonym for daring and success, they 
themselves became heroic. They could not have 
become brave by studying the art of war or prac- 
ticing military tactics; it was necessary for them 
to see soldierly virtue incarnated and in action. 
Thus seeing it and associating with it, it stimu- 
lated and developed the soldierly virtues in their 
own bosoms. It is but one illustration of the 
great principle that runs through all human life. 
The word must become flesh and dwell among us 
before we behold and are moved by its glory. It 
is only another way of saying^ that precepts must 
be translated into character before they make 
character in others. 

This example will help us to answer the ques- 
tion: What is the belief in Christ that saves? It 



252 JUSTICE AND MERCY. 

is belief in such a life as he led; belief in the 
things for which he stood; belief in the purity and 
goodness and love which he exemplified. Prof. 
Momerie says that "there is and can be but one 
all-comprehensive synonym for Christ — namely, 
righteousness." To believe in the things which 
Christ embodied; to believe in his life as the 
highest life; to believe in his character as the no- 
blest character; to believe this with all one's heart 
will lift him out of his sins into the sphere of 
honor and love and usefulness. The salvation of 
Jesus proceeds upon a perfectly natural and wide- 
reaching principle. It is not arbitrary, mechani- 
cal or miraculous. Truth worked out in a life — 
all high and holy qualities expressed in a char- 
acter, — this is what touches and exalts. 

I was impressed by reading a short time ago an 
account that some one gave of his first meeting 
with Dr. Thomas Hill of Harvard: 

"As I went my way home, I discovered that 
somehow a new brightness had got into the sun- 
shine. • I was conscious of new visions and other 
aims. Meditating upon him, he stood before me 
as one who from the greatness of his riches could 
appropriate them to the most every-day uses, 
whose personal greatness was of the noble kind 
that, so far from overpowering, lifts up the feebler 
brother, something as a strong man may lift a child 
into his arms, where he, too, may see the spectacle 



WHA T MUST I DO TO BE SA VED? 253 

of which his lowly stature had denied him vision." 
It is the same kind of quickening, though greater 
in degree, that one receives in the atmosphere of 
Christ. Our low aims and selfish ambitions melt 
away and life takes on new glory and power. 

He sets before us our ideal. He shows what is 
to be done, what we ought to become. In the 
Greek legend, Eurydice, the wife of Orpheus, was 
fatally bitten by a serpent and carried down to 
Hades. There Orpheus sought her with his golden 
lyre, with his music putting Cerberus, the three- 
headed watch- dog, to sleep and softening the in- 
exorable Pluto to consent to her release. The 
consent, however, was coupled with the condition 
that Orpheus was to lead her out, not turning to 
look upon her till they had reached the upper 
world of light and joy, of flowers and sunshine. 
But Orpheus could not keep the condition. He 
turned to look back upon his wife and beheld her 
snatched away forever into the realms of darkness. 
The music of Christ's words, — words spoken with 
authority, sounds through all the dark places of 
earth, through every life of sin, bidding us look 
forward and upward, never backward, leading us 
to where the beautiful light of heaven plays upon 
the summits of moral achievement, of deliverance 
from sin. 

We are saved not only by believing in the ideal 
thus set before us, but also by believing in the 



254 JUSTICE AND MERCY. 

possibility of reaching that ideal. It is nothing 
impossible that is set before us. We shall often 
fail and be discouraged; but we must press on. 
For the last few days the sun has been playing 
around the edges of winter. Here and there the 
fetters of the frost have been loosed; here and 
there the snow has given way. But this is not the 
end of winter. In all probability the thermometer 
will go down again; other snow-storms will come. 
This is not the end, but this is a prophecy. Spring 
maybe far off, but it is coming. So in human life. 
It may be long before the sun of righteousness 
triumphs, but its dominion is assured. 

It is related that a German with a trained 
musical ear came a stranger into an American 
city. He heard the voice of song, and following 
the sound, he soon found himself in a meeting 
where they were singing psalmody in a nasal and 
discordant way. After he had got fairly in there, 
he wished he was out, and he did not know 
whether he ought to put his hands over his ears 
and show his disgust so, or rush out of the hall, 
but being too well bred to do either, he determined 
to endure it as best he could. And while he was 
sitting there, he discerned a woman's voice, clear 
and sweet, singing in exact tune, and she was not 
trying to drown all the rest down either. Nor, on 
the other hand, was she at all disturbed or her 
melody at all marred by the discords around her, 



WHA T MUST I DO TO BE SA VEB? 255 

but she just kept singing that sweet, pure note of 
concord, until at last it became infectious and 
the others began to fall in with it, and it was not 
long before the whole company were singing in 
perfect harmony, influenced by the example of 
that one voice. 

So shall the voice of Jesus at last conquer with 
the melody of the skies, all our earthly discords, 
and bring our hearts into accord with the harmony 
divine. This is our hope, this is our firm faith, 
and the strength of this conviction shall deliver 
our souls at last. 

What, then, shall I do to be saved? Study the 
life that Christ led, believe in it, and try to live it; 
believe in it so that you will try to live it. Any 
other kind of belief in him is empty and fruitless. 
Such a life as he lived is salvation. 



XVI. 

THE LIBERAL FAITH AS A BASIS OF CHAR- 
ACTER. 

[Sunday Evening, February 7, 1892.] 

"A good tree cannot bri?ig forth evil fruit, neither 
can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit." — Matt. 

7:18. 

That many forms of belief which have held 
wide sway in Christendom, are doomed, goes 
almost without the saying. The walls of many 
creeds are crumbling, the foundations giving way. 
The various movements in favor of revision of old 
statements are very significant. What shall come 
when these have fallen? What new structures 
shall rise above their ruins? What new forms of 
faith will take hold on human minds? There 
must be no reign of chaos. Night and anarchy 
must not prevail. Something else must be pro- 
vided — something brighter and better and stronger. 
The unsettling is at hand; the casting off is cer- 
tain. What shall be our attitude? The hero in 
one of Turgenief's novels says: "But isn't it neces- 
sary to rebuild? That does not concern us. Be- 
fore all things, it is necessary to clear the ground." 
It is necessary to clear the ground, but it is also 
necesary to rebuild. The man who really cares for 



THE LIBERAL FAITH. 257 

the welfare of his fellows must set himself at work 
to discover or construct something better. Let who 
will be the breaker,it is for him to create. It is easy 
to reduce beliefs and all things else to a condition 
described by the words, "without form and void," 
To send the Spirit of God over the face of the 
dark waters, breathing life and beauty and majes- 
tic form into the chaos, is not so easy. But it is 
the real work. It is the great problem before the 
liberal thinker. It calls for earnestness of pur- 
pose, singleness of aim, and depth of moral con- 
viction. 

The faith that is represented in all liberal churches 
puts the emphasis upon character. I remember 
that during the latter part of my ministry on the 
other side of the river, a good brother said to me 
one day, "You are beginning to preach like the 
Universalists and Unitarians; you talk too much 
about character, and not enough about the 'blood.' " 
1 did not at that time perceive the drift of my own 
preaching, but I remember I thought it somewhat 
strange that any one should object to a minister's 
laying great weight upon pe^onal character. 

President Andrews, of Brovvn University, said, 
in a recent number of the Baptist Examiner: 

"Every religious body has some theory of the 
way in which men are to be made happy in an- 
other wcirld. Of the churches this is eminently 

true, pre-eminently of those called evangelical, 
17 



258 JUSTICE AND MERCY. 

which still make up the great majority. Now, in 
these churches, little as we may like to admit it, 
and earnestly as the keenest-sighted religious 
teachers in them deplore it, the ordinary doctrine 
of salvation is one which sunders virtue and reli T 
gion almost as completely as ever any heathen 
faith did. Practically, righteousness is not made 
an essential, inevitable condition to the weal and 
bliss for which saints hope and pray." 

As one has well expressed it, the liberal denomi- 
nations "have laid stress on character as the high- 
est aim of life, the great work of the Gospel, the 
Alpha and Omega of true religion. .Undeterred 
by the cry that they were teaching 'mere morality,' 
* * * they have maintained that the purpose 
of the Gospel was not to save the soul from a 
future hell, but to cause the kingdom of God to 
come here, and His will to be done on earth as it 
is in heaven. They have declared that we were 
not to prepare to die, but to prepare to live, for if 
we live aright, we shall always be ready to die." 
Or, as another has put it, "In the possession of a 
consecrated character, in the eloquence of a life 
that is lived with God, is the one thing that can 
make people sure that there is a living God. There 
is but one real proof of life, and that is life itself." 
Character is the highest aim. To develop in 
rounded completeness and symmetry the highest 
and noblest part of his nature — to endeavor to 



THE LIBERAL FAITH. 259 

become perfect even as the Father in heaven is 
perfect — may well enlist man's profoundest 
thought and call forth his intensest energies. 

The question, therefore, that meets him upon 
the threshold is, What form of faith is best adapted 
to this tremendous end? In the doctrines set forth 
and advocated by liberal churches, are there those 
elements that tend to produce strong and beau- 
tiful, manly and womanly characters? I shall let 
an eminent orthodox clergyman help us to an an- 
swer. Rev. J. H. Barrows, D. D., a distinguished 
Presbyterian, of Chicago, said last year in the 
Independent: 

"Between Orthodoxy and Unbelief appears that 
form of doctrine which we know as Christian 
Liberalism. It does not embrace any large por- 
tion of nominal Christendom; it has had spasms 
of prosperity now and then in the past. It does 
not appear to-day as an organized body of belief, 
but rather as a number of small churches and as- 
sociations of churches composed of excelle?it men who 
have not found a home in evangelical denomina- 
tions and who are still more repelled by the spirit 
and attitude of infidelity. There is little unity in 
their ranks, except, perhaps, in rejecting the 
orthodox escatology. Most of them are active in 
charitable works. It is not usual for them to em- 
phasize the doctrine of sin and sacrificial atone- 
ment and regeneration, and hence they are not 



260 JUSTICE AND MERCY. 

ofren engaged in revival activity. They have pro-* 
duced many noble characters, they stand as critics at 
the door of orthodoxy, and doubtless have modi- 
fied, to a certain degree, the evahgelical teachings 
of the past." 

I trust we shall see that there is more unity than 
Dr. Barrows credits us with; but it is gratifying 
to hear him use such terms in describing us as 
"excellent men," "active in charitable works/' 
"have produced many noble characters," and also 
to hear his confession, in spite of much said to the 
contrary, that we have "modified to a certain de- 
gree, the evangelical teachings of the past." This 
may explain why our growth as separate bodies 
has not been larger. The temperature of evan- 
gelical churches is so cooling off that they are 
becoming more comfortable for all shades of 
opinion. 

A good tree can not bring forth evil fruit, 
neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. 
The kind of men and women produced must at 
length decide the kind of principles and institu- 
tions that produced them. By their fruits ye shall 
know them. Let us not shrink from the test. 

I do not mean to say that the elements I am 
about to mention are not found elsewhere — far 
from that. I mean to say simply that they are 
prominent and vital in the Liberal Faith — that 
they characterize it. They are not sporadic and 



THE LIBERAL FAITH. 261 

exceptional; they are absolutely essential. And I 
call upon all those who profess to be emancipated 
from the bondage of severer creeds to strive for 
higher attainments, for grander lives. Liberality 
does not mean looseness. 

i. At the basis of all true and right character 
lies sincerity. This foundation virtue the Liberal 
Faith demands beyond everything else. 

It says to every man, "Be fully persuaded in 
your own mind," no matter what the persuasion. 
It encourages no evasions or mental reservations. 
It warns every man against placing himself or al- 
lowing himself to be placed, in a false position. 
"Thou desirest truth in the inward part." It forbids 
him, for the sake of social position, business ad- 
vantages, opinions of his friends or any other con- 
sideration, to give his assent, directly or by im- 
plication, to a creed or party in which he does not 
believe with his whole heart. It says to him, 
"Stand where you belong; be true to your own 
light, and not to another man's; suppress nothing; 
speak yourself fully and bravely out. " "This above 
all, to thine own self be true, and it must follow, 
as the night the day, thou canst not then be false 
to any man." 

The Liberal Faith does not seek, by any eccles- 
iastical machinery or threats of Divine interfere 
ence, to coerce men into this or that belief. It 
does not say unto them, Unless your views and 



262 JUSTICE AND MERCY. 

your conduct harmonize with certain prescribed 
standards, you are forever lost. No lash of terror 
is cracked about the ears of men to scare them into 
doctrines against which their inmost convictions 
rebel. The hideous fiction of an eternal inquisition 
for those whose views differ, even in vital and es- 
sential respects, from certain formularies, has done 
much to produce cowardice and falsehood. Men 
have shrunk from investigation; have smothered 
doubts which might have led them to clearer light 
and more solid footing as if they were suggestions 
of infamy; have said, "I will do thus and I will 
think so, or God will punish me for ever and ever." 
There is no hope for any one until he can say, 
"Hell or no hell, I will be an honest man; whither 
my best light leads me I will go, let the conse- 
quences be what they may!" 

Here and there a superior mind has broken 
away, and recorded its deliverance in a sublime 
sentence. Said John Stuart Mill, "I will call no 
being good who is not what I mean when I apply 
this epithet to my fellow-creatures, and if such 
being can sentence me to hell, for not so believ- 
ing him, then to hell I will go!" Leigh Hunt de- 
clared that he would not believe the doctrine of 
eternal perdition, though an angel from heaven 
preached it. "It would be easier to believe the 
angel mistaken than God*monstrous." 

I do not wish to be misunderstood. I am not 



THE LIBERAL FAITH. 263 

charging those who hold different views with dis- 
honesty. I am affirming that the tendency of 
such a doctrine, of such a fear, is to deter men 
from free investigation and untramrneled thought, 
for dread of the consequences if they do not 
reach, in their thought and investigation, a certain 
conclusion. 

Opinions, characters, 'hopes builded upon fear, 
or mainly upon fear, are lacking in heartfelt sin- 
cerity, and will fall at last as the house of -which 
Jesus spake, that was builded on the sand. This 
is one reason why so many people converted in 
revivals have to be converted over again the next 
winter. Under the influence of a temporary panic 
they rush to the altar; but when the fear departed, 
they go back to their old habits. Their last state 
is even worse than the first. The liberal faith 
strives to remove from men's minds the bondage 
which prevents, in so many cases, complete in- 
genuousness. It says to them, "Be honest! 
Whatever may meet the divine displeasure, God 
is always pleased with sincerity. He does not de- 
light in cowardice or falsehood." But the Liberal 
Faith does not leave man without motive. For 
the lower and dwarfing motive of fear, it substi- 
tutes the nobler and grander motive of love — love 
to God and to all mankind. There is a story that, 
"A century ago in the north of Europe stood an 
old cathedral upon one of whose arches was a 



2G4 JUSTICE AND MERCY. 

sculptured face of wondrous beauty. It was long 
hidden, until one day the sun's light striking 
through a slanted window revealed the matchless 
features. And ever after, year by year, upon the 
days when for a brief hour it was thus illuminated, 
crowds came and waited eagerly to catch but a 
glimpse of that face. It had a strange history. 
When the cathedral was building, an old man, 
broken with the weight of years and care, came 
and besought the architect to let him work upon 
it. Out of pity for his age, but fearful lest his 
failing sight and trembling touch might mar some 
fair design, the master set him to work in the 
shadows of the vaulted roof. One day they found 
the old man asleep in death, the tools of his craft 
laid in order beside him, the cunning of his right 
hand gone, his face upturned to this other marvel- 
ous face he had wrought there — the face of one 
whom he had loved and lost in his early manhood. 
And when the artists and sculptors and workmen 
from all parts of the cathedral came and looked 
upon that face, they said, 'This is the grandest 
work of all — love wrought this.' " And so in the 
work we do in our own characters and in the 
world, that is best and strongest and grandest 
which is wrought under the inspiration of love — 
love for God, love for those who bear his image. 

2. A true character must be a rounded one. 
The more of himself a man uses, the better the 



THE LIBERAL FAITH. 265 

result as a whole. Every power must be brought 
out, every faculty must be called into play. 

Man's reason as well as emotion must be used. 
If must be introduced into religion as well as into 
secular affairs. Man's "weak and erring and 
darkened reason" is a popular theme. The ten- 
dency is to repress instead of training and fitting 
it for its God-like mission. Thinking for one's 
self is stigmatized as treason against God. Others 
say that one may use his reason if using it brings 
him to a certain result; but not if his reason leads 
him to reject the doctrine of the Trinity, the deity 
of Christ, the infallibility of Scripture, the sacrifi- 
cial theory of the Atonement. In that case, your 
reason must be suppressed. It then becomes too 
haughty and overweening for such a poor, dishon- 
ored thing. Only use your reason when it brings 
you into our camp. Prof. Fisher admits that "it 
is sometimes seen that the most ardent advocates 
of men's responsibility for their opinions are 
ready to wield the weapons of denunciation and 
threatening where there is the least whisper of 
dissent from traditional doctrines. They sound 
the trumpet, whet their swords, and rally their ad- 
herents from every side for the purpose of stifling 
honest discussion, and of frightening the timid 
into silence or into conformity." The Liberal 
Faith says, One's religion must satisfy his reason; 
not suppress it. Every power God has given 



266 JUSTICE AND MERCY. 

must be used. The real traitor against God is he 
who casts contempt upon his handiwork — who 
refuses to trust the revelation he has made in the 
human soul. The liberal churches are never con- 
vulsed over a new idea. They are hospitable to- 
truth from whatever quarter. 

3. No strong character can be developed un- 
less emphasis be laid upon the thought of personal 
responsibility. 

True men and women must feel their freedom, 
and ability; they are not simply the creatures of 
heredity and circumstances. They have power 
over their own souls and lives. We must realize 
that we are responsible for our own sin, and that 
we ourselves must cease from sin. Adam, in the 
old story, tried to lay the blame of his transgres- 
sion on Eve. The theologians have well paid him 
back for his lack of gallantry; for, ever since that, 
they have been laying the blame for us all upon 
Adam. We have derived from him a corrupt na- 
ture, and some say that the guilt which he incurred 
is imputed to us. The doctrine is thus stated in 
one of the creeds: "Man was created in holiness 
under the law of his Maker; but by voluntary 
transgression fell from that holy and happy state, 
in consequence of which all mankind are now sin- 
ners, not by constraint, but choice, being by nature 
utterly void of that holiness required by the law of 
God; positively inclined to evil; and, therefore, 



THE LIBERAL FAITH. 267 

under just condemnation to eternal ruin without 
defense or excuse.' Thus we get our start in sin, 
and find ourselves helpless for anything but sin. 
We are told in another statement of the same de- 
nomination: "Man, by his fall into a state of sin, 
hath wholly lost all ability of will to any spiritual 
good accompanying salvation; so, as a natural 
man, being altogether averse to that good and 
dead in sin, is not able by his own strength to con- 
vert himself or prepare himself thereunto." He 
is not even responsible for his own temptations. 
A devil has been invented to lift that burden from 
human shoulders. The only way out of this 
state of evil and bondage lies through the atone- 
ment, by which our sins are imputed to Christ, and 
his righteousness to us. But even here the sover- 
eign will of God determines that only a part of 
humanity shall have the benefit of this atonement. 
The rest are left to suffer the penalty of sins for 
which they were not responsible, and from which 
they had no power to escape. 

Over against this doctrine of original corruption 
and final injustice, this doctrine of helplessness 
in evil and righteousness by transfer, the Liberal 
Faith says: You are free and responsible. Man 
makes his own sin and his own righteousness. 
Character is not transferable. Christ owed his 
own debt to God, and could not pay yours or 
mine. He was under obligation to keep the moral 



268 JUSTICE AND MERCY. 

law for himself, just as you and I are under obliga- 
tion to keep it. He could perform no works of 
supererogation that might be credited to us. We 
may have to help us the example of Christ, the 
inspiration of his life, the guidance of his words,* 
but we must work out our own salvation. One of 
Richter's characters exclaims: "I will, in the sea 
of the world, rise like a living man by swimming, 
and not like a drowned man by corruption. Yes, 
father, let fate cast a gravestone on this*breast, and 
crush it, when it has lost virtue and the divinity of 
its own heart." The Liberal Faith takes off the 
chains in which theology has bound man, and 
says to him:- "You can, you must. Do! Dare!" 
Man cannot grow morally strong any more than he 
can grow strong intellectually and physically, 
until he has been thrown upon his own resources 
and made to feel his own responsibility. 

The lesson of personal responsibility is the 
need of the hour. The sin of Adam cannot work 
our ruin; the holiness of Christ cannot take the 
place of our own obedience. For woe or for weal, 
the responsibility is with us. 

"So near is grandeur to our dust, 

So near is God to man, 
When duty whispers low, You must, 

The youth replies, I can." 

4. There is another element of the Liberal 
Faith that is of value in the development of char- 
acter — its doctrine of retribution. 



THE LIBERAL FAITH. 269 

The charge is frequently made that liberal 
Christianity underestimates sin, and leaves out its 
penalty. No charge could be more unfounded. 
In an article on human destiny, in a recent book 
entitled, "The Unknown Country," Washington 
Gladden has this remarkable passage: "My own 
belief is that the real terrors of the law are now 
more clearly announced from the Universalist pul- 
pit than from the pulpits of our most orthodox 
teachers. Not long ago, after I had been preach- 
ing on this subject, a very intelligent man, now an 
active member of an orthodox church, said to me: 
'That is an awful trjith\ I heard it just in the same 
way once before and it was the first time that I 
was ever startled and alarmed about my sins. I 
had heard many sermons on punishment, but this 
was the first one that frightened me and made me 
feel my need of deliverance and salvation, and 
that sermon,' added niy friend, 'was preached in a 
Universalist church by a Universalist minister.' 
It is very true that the force of this teaching is 
neutralized in Universalist pulpits by the dogmatic 
assertion that all men, somehow or other, in spite 
of themselves, are going to be saved by and by; 
but the fact remains that these teachers do see and 
set forth in vigorous fashion the consequences of 
sin." 

The concession of Mr. Gladden is so full and 
frank, that it may seem ungenerous even to sug- 






270 JUSTICE AND MERCY. 

gest a slight correction. No Universalist holds 
that anyone will be saved "in spite of himself." 
Everyone must be saved willingly, and will be, 
even in the next world; and by the same processes 
which save us here. 

Even greater stress is laid upon the exceeding 
sinfulness of sin when it is shown to be voluntary 
and not constrained; even more impressive is its 
penalty when it is shown to be instant and exact, 
not deferred and disproportioned. The writer of 
the book of Ecclesiastes said that "the hearts of 
the sons of men were fully set in them to do evil, 
because sentence against an «evil work was not 
speedily executed." Delay the reckoning and you 
increase the sinner's impunity. Sin carries it pun- 
ishment with it, so long as sin continues, in this 
world, or the remotest quarter of the universe. It 
does not await its sentence till some future day 
of judgment; here and now and continuous is the 
reckoning. The laws of this wondrous universe, 
the laws of the human soul, are so marvellously 
adjusted that they bring the thrill of pain or the 
crown of life the moment they are violated or 
obeyed. These laws do not wait for pealing trum- 
pet or chariot of returning Judge. In pang of con- 
science, in sense of degradation, in diminished 
manhood, in enfeebled will, in impaired body, is 
the sentence executed. In the peace of God, in 
ennobled character, is heard the word, "Well 



THE LIBERAL FAITH 271 

done, good and faithful servant!" The only way 
to escape penalty is to cease from sin. 

The children were playing in the yard. Mamma 
sat sewing by the window, and overheard the fol- 
lowing conversation. Charlie spoke first. 

"Do you feel real mean when you do anything 
wrong, Helen?" 

"I never thought about it," replied Helen. 

"Don't you ever feel kind of hot and on fire 
from your head clear down to your feet?" 

"No, I don't know as I do." 

"Well, I tell you I do," went on Charlie, reflec- 
tively. "First my head gets all hot and my face 
red, and I feel awfully, as if I were going to burn 
up; and the feeling keeps spreading and spread- 
ing until I tingle clear down into my fingers and 
toes. And Helen," he added, after two or three 
vicious digs into the earth, "I just believe that's 
hell." 

And that is hell, — here and hereafter. The fires 
of shame and remorse are the fire and brimstone 
that burn us; and they will burn until that which 
brings the shame is utterly and forever consumed. 

5. Into a character that would be symmetrically 
and fully developed, must enter the thought of the 
oneness of life. 

Religion is one with business and pleasure as 
well as with worship. God is served in honest 
weight and measure, as well as in prayer and an- 



272 JUSTICE AND MERCY. 

them. His altar is by the fireside as well as in the 
sanctuary. Life is one. There are no petty prov- 
inces over which petty princes rule. One is king, 
God. His kingdom is the secular as well as the 
sacred. The universe is one stuff. Table of, 
counting-room and ark of covenant are hewn from 
the same tree. Drapery of parlor and robe of 
angel are cut from the same fabric. The Liberal 
Faith draws no fanciful distinction between 
natural goodness and spiritual. All goodness is 
natural and all goodness spiritual. Sentiments of 
justice and mercy are just the same before what is 
called "conversion" as they are after. The love 
that bends over the cradle is as holy as that which 
inspires the song of the elders! The Liberal Faith 
identifies this life and the next. "Everything, even 
heaven and hell, are of this earth," said a disciple 
of Plato. Life is one; and death is but a larger 
incident in an endless career. It works no mar- 
velous changes, nor does it give an unalterable 
direction to the faculties. Death is not so impor- 
tant an event as we used to think it. It sets us 
down across the boundary, just as we close our 
eyes upon this side of the horizen. It terminates 
one epoch of life only to begin at the same point, 
another and better. Life is one, in all its depart- 
ments; life is one here and hereafter. 

6. One's character will also be more or less 
influenced by his thought of God, of man, and of hu- 
man destiny. 



THE LIBERAL FAITH. 273 

He who wishes to live conscientiously will try 

to be what his conception of God demands. LoweL 

sings : 

"As their Gods were, so their laws were, 

Thor, the strong, could reave and steal, 
So thro' many a peaceful inlet, 
Tore the Norseman's eager keel. 

"But a new law came when Christ came, 

And not blameless as before, 
Can we, paying him our lip-tithes, 
Give our life and faith to Thor." 

Our treatment of men will also be somewhat 
determined by the views we take of human broth- 
erhood. The Liberal Faith emphasizes the thought 
that men are brothers. The race sprung from one 
Father, one family in the beginning, bound to- 
gether by so many ties of suffering, of aspiration, 
of joy, will be one in its destiny. 

"Master, if there be doom, 
All men are bereaven, 
If in the universe 
One soul receive a curse, 
Alas for heaven!" 

Such a hope is surely an aspiration, and throw- 
ing a gleam of light across the sin, the sorrow 
and the ignorance of to-day, lifts up the hands that 
grow weary, and strengthens the feet that falter. 
The Liberal Faith keeps constantly before us, 

"That God which ever lives and loves, 
One God, one Jaw, one element, 
And one far-off divine event, 
*q To which the whole creation moves." 



274 JUSTICE AND MERCY. 

Just outside the city of Geneva, are two rivers 
which come together; but the one to the left is 
muddy and turbid, while that to the right is clear 
as crystal. You can look down into its liquid 
depths, and clearly distinguish every object that 
lies at the bottom. Standing there upon that nar- 
row neck of land, as far as the eye can reach, these 
two rivers move along side by side, as though 
divided by an invisible partition of glass. But if 
you go down the river a mile or two, you discover 
that the clear, limpid water is beginning to be 
tainted by the waters of the muddy stream. If 
you go down a little further, you find that the 
clear, crystal water is lost in the muddy, turbid 
stream. But go down the river a few miles 
further, and you find that the mud and filth and 
dirt are beginning to settle down to their native 
earth; the river has filtered as it flows. Then if 
you go down to where it pours its flood into the 
ocean, you will find the entire stream clear as 
crystal. 

Two rivers are flowing through this world, and 
they are flowing J;o the Infinite ocean. The river 
of God's love is clear as crystal, and as it rolls 
along, the light sparkles on its bosom. Into that 
river flows another, the tide of human life, defiled 
and muddy. It seems sometimes as if the human 
stream would blot out the divine. They flow on- 
ward together, and the pure stream conquers at 



THE LIBERAL FAITH, 275 

last the foul. Somewhere in the eternal flood, 
somewhere in the great, deep sea, the human 
stream loses its defilement, and sparkles with the 
beauty of God! 

By these principles men have lived and de- 
veloped strong and manly characters. The bead- 
roll of saints that will answer to the call of the 
views presented, will compare with that of any 
other calendar under the sun. Witness the 
Brookes, and Martineaus and Channings and 
Parkers and Emersons and Ballous and Chapins 
and hundreds of others who have honored the 
human race. Place the rank and file of the Lib- 
eral churches side by side with the rank and file of 
other churches, and for solidity of character, for 
every-day righteousness, — if not for emotional 
display and ecstatic fervor, — they need not shrink 
from the comparison. Yes, by this faith, men 
have lived and do live most gloriously. By this 
faith men have died, not in the agonies of remorse 
depicted by the popular tract and sermon; the 
hour of departure was calm and peaceful, and the 
spirits of these just men passed away as gently 
and beautifully as the fading of sunset from the 
evening sky. No grinning fiends danced gleefully 
by their bedsides. The vision of God grew brighter 
and brighter, until mortality was swallowed up of 
Life! 

"We stand," to use the language of another, "in 



276 JUSTICE AND MERCY. 

every community where a church of the Liberal 
Faith exists, for faith in the ever-living and ever- 
opening - gospel — a gospel which existed long be- 
fore any of the creeds that embody it, and will 
live long after they are all forgotten; a gospel 
which has no shackles for the body or the mind; 
which is not afraid of the geologist's hammer, the 
astronomer's tube, or the naturalist's microscope; 
which believes in man as God's inalienable child, 
and in Christ as God's free mercy, and in God as 
the universal Father, against whose mighty and 
eternal love neither Adam's sins nor ours can 
stand up as permanent barriers to its glorious, 
beneficent and universal course; a gospel of com- 
mon sense, of generous sympathies, of broad 
charity, of practical beneficence, which claims to 
come from Christ's lips, which hopes to fold the 
whole world in its gentle arms, and which is not 
afraid to trust itself in life and in death, as the 
appointed way of salvation and the gate of eternal 
life." 

These are 

"Truths which wake 

To perish never; 
And neither listlessness, nor mad endeavor, 

Nor man nor boy, 

Nor aught that is at enmity with joy. 
Can utterly abolish or destroy." 



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